Me too. I didn't work on online games, but when I was in college I actually worked part time at a hobby shop, which happened to have a really big nerd community so there were all kinds of table top gamers who hid their hobby from the world by playing in our back room (And the owner raped them on Soda/Chips, heh). Eventually I was making custom rules for about ten different groups. They would say "X part of the game kind of sucks"--and redesigning it was a ton of fun for me. (THACO from 2nd Edition D&D was the first system I re-designed.)
Was probably the most fun I had around gaming, ever. I loved creating rule sets. But then real life started
...I always wished though I could have continued with my hobby, I did enjoy it a lot (But the internet also killed a lot of hobby shops). That's why I'm so interested in EQL/N and SOTA, and even the Unity engine. I think, as you said, there is going to be a whole industry around game
making, not just game playing. Crowd Sourcing development is the wave of the future, because it's a game in and of itself, people love designing levels and games, the only problem has been the technical hurdles (But look at what it's brought us even with those hurdles, Counter Strike, DOTA ect)--once those technical hurdles get low enough, I think it's going to be a
hugemarket. And it's going to reinvent gaming. (Sony is smart to try and get in front of it).
Anyway, though, yeah, I'd love to hobby it up again and see what can be made.