I agree if you’re going to be a figurehead IT director or upper management, you’d need to prove fiscal responsabilities along with technical skills. But money can’t buy you leadership and good decision making skills. If you look at it from another perspective, if you get a cert, some companies might be threatened that your worth has improved, which means they’d have to pay you more. Theres nothing worse than being ‘overqualified’. As far as the technical aspect, the last thing you want to do is go into a place 'Mr. Know It All". with all of your certs…lets just say mcse’s annoy me on a daily basis. So take that for what it’s worth. It all depends on the niche you’re going for in the industry. True some places will want to hire an all-in-wonder but most will flop and fill that position below expectations OR do it well till they realize they’re worth more $$$. Certifications will make you more marketable to a staffing firm but I’ve seen a few go under and people just migrate to another. It seems that the industry is heading back to basics. It’s all about simplicity, virtualization and consolidation for ease management and cost effectiveness. So brush up on your command line, virtualpc/vmware, scripts and unix based os’s. Keep in mind this quote…“Jack of all trades, master of none.”