The future of the Windows-centric IT Pro?

I looked at Monad briefly a couple of months ago - after all it's still a reasonably long way off yet, probably in the Longhorn timeframe. However, there's been a couple of articles just posted on the Internet looking at the future of "shell scripting" (forgive borrowing the Unix terminology) in Windows, for example here on WindowsITPro and here on RedmondMag.Even though I'm probably now leading myself down a path where I'm going to be flamed from all sides...... where as I see Monad as a huge benefit in the long term, my concern has to be that it is going to scare the wits out of most Windows-centric IT Pro's in the community at large - this is drawing a very thin line between developers and IT Pros. Although somewhat generalising, it is (in my humble opinion) reasonably well accepted that many *nix administrators are comfortable understanding or authoring complex shell scripts, and further, most have a reasonable understanding of writing at least simple programs in C/Perl/PHP etc. My experience tells me that most Windows IT Pros try very hard to shy away from these types of skills.

So, a few thoughts/questions for to throw out for comment...

• Where do you see the skill sets of IT Pros heading in the future. Windows has gone a long way with GUIs making point and click management tasks easier, but are we all going to have to get to grips with the developer 'dark'-side as well?
• How many Windows IT Pros have at least one command prompt permanently open on their desktop today?
• How comfortable would you feel if you were told you have to understand the .Net framework and all that goes with it to perform your job in the future?