You bring up a good point. It absolutely is an art, and a GOOD structures guy is hard to find. Kind of like a good troubleshooter/avionics guy. If it wasn't for the massive outsourcing going on in this nation to foreign repair facilities, the shortage of-qualified-(not people that just got out of some a/p sch)AMTs would've already hit this industry HARD.
It's starting to show itself, but at a slower rate. I've seen it at Boeing over the years I've been up here. But another factor is the ever increasing addition of composite sub assemblies.
THAT is the area I'd migrate over to! ;-)