I agree with the vast majority here. IT isn't cool because one, training for the future is lacking; two, salaries and work hours are not realistic; and three outsourcing is seen as too common a practice.
When I stated in IT I was told all the fluff from management about how we have the latest and greatest widgets in the area. Reality check after gettting hired that the widgets across the street were better created a rift right away. Finding the training to work on my old widgets that while I had heard of them was not where my starting instruction took place was costly. The company didn't want to invest in my development. Instead the moved me to a different widget line that no one had used yet and said learn that. The training involved in that was my ability to find info on the internet and calling a tech support line that was designed to troubleshoot not train.

The salary scale put me lower than the average and with a family to think about the ability to train on my own became limited. couple that with long hours of "on call" meaning no overtime and you start to see the problem- no time to work outside on new skills and no pay to afford those skills creates a vacuum that leaves you a little disgruntled.
Outsourcing will always be there. The need for someone to do various tasks that maybe are not in the skill set of your current workforce leads to management looking for cheap ways to get the things they want now. Hello outsourcing. Cut my costs for training and get my widgets faster is a win for management who need to report to boards and investors. eventually as the technology gets more intuitive you start to question why keeping a staff at all is a consideration, after all I can pick up a phone, wait on hold playing solitaire or answering email, and pay a one time fee just like my employee.
hope that made sense. I know I am looking for the next widget across the street but the reality is that widget is still a widget and only my view will change until culture changes.