Thanks for the comments and suggestions. One of my main thoughts when I wrote the OP is the difference between a specialist and a generalist, when it comes to natural abilities. The specialist is more vulnerable. They may succeed in their narrow area of high ability, but if not, they can be in worse shape than the generalist who naturally has a wider range of options.
That is not always the case. If you are too much of a generalist, you may end up not really being strong in one area - leaving you vulnerable too. My particular group (in high tech) is most or less a group that has a lot of folks that would been seen as "generalist" due to the broad range of environments/tools we support, but most of us still have certain areas where we have strong expertise and then just general knowledge for the basics in the other areas my team supports (enough to handle most of the daily requests that comes in when needed). I have noticed that those of us on my team with very strong skills in our areas are usually most sought after by users and their managers (even if some areas, we have no clue) and those who only know the bare basics of all tools but no real depth in anything are just as actively avoided. And our environment is changing all the time (some of us have better capacity to adjust and learn on the spot as our work environment changes than others).
From what I have seen, in some areas, generalists are first to be laid off if they are not perceived as being strong in any area (meaning they are seen as easy to replace and get someone else trained if the company grows again).
Regardless of whether you are seen as more of a generalist or specialist, due to the rapid changes in many fields, everyone has to be able to adapt to and adopt new technologies and changes. If you are too rigid and always resist change in your field, you most likely will be left behind. I believe this is true in most fields.
