What you've advised tends to line up very well with what I've been thinking. I suppose it all comes down to how and where you actually present yourself, something I'm unfortunately not very good at. I'd rather keep my head buried in a database than go to a "training" course where the training is underwhelming and the networking coffee breaks are the main attraction 😛

Edit: Really nice article by the way, I would say that my responsibilities definitely lie at the level III layer and are split between database architect, administration and development. Mostly architecture and administration, I tend to deflect a lot of the day to day development stuff simply due to lack of time, jumping in for "the important stuff", or when people are getting stuck or things aren't performing as they need to be. I appreciated the article because it was the first time I've seen summaries to which I could point and say "yes, THAT'S what I do!" 🙂