I believe that is technically correct but not for much longer and who wants to go through the pain of getting a cert that will be withdrawn soon, and in an aging version of the product.

I have no objection to MS moving the certs onwards but it just seems ridiculous to remove levels of certification for what appears to be a marketing exercise. I know that SQL 2014 has all sorts of excellent Enterprise features, unfortunately I work in an SME environment where none of these are (directly) relevant but where we need to know that people are basically competent in T-SQL and interacting with SQL Server functionality. Am I to assume that we shouldn't be using SQL server any more simply because I don't need enterprise features? What are we supposed to use instead.

This seems particularly strange at a time when functionality such as Azure is maturing and the separation between database developers and those supporting/administering the database engine infrastructure seems likely to become greater rather than less.

The end result of this is that a number of us are seriously considering deciding whether we want to be pushed into the full sledgehammer/nut MCSE route or if we should be looking at other technologies.