I have served with adequate DBA's.  I know adequate DBA's.   Adequate DBA's are friends of mine.  Louie, you are not just an adequate DBA.    

Although the statement above is fashioned after an insult from a vice-presidential debate way back in the times before I had even heard of SQL Server, in this case I hope it can be considered as a compliment.   You have been on the front cover of books about SQL Server since about the time I started considering a career in database admin.  Many of these books have aged quite gracefully, imparting knowledge to folks like me through multiple releases of SQL Server.   Without those references and websites like  SQLServerCentral.com, I believe that a lot of those adequate DBA's would have not been able to function at the level they did.   At the level we did.  For I am an adequate DBA.    So folks like yourself, and many, many others who stepped forward and wrote the books, or developed the software and then shared the inner workings, or used the internet to spread the word cannot be considered merely adequate.   You guys and gals paved the way.  That makes you all exemplary.

Even if you never figure out how to use Polybase or the cloud.   SQL Server has grown so large and robust, that folks can now make a career out of only a small part of the entire SQL Server landscape.  SQL now almost requires specialization.  People can now be considered rockstars for knowing all about HA/DR, or performance-tuning or MDX queries.   I get your point when you say 'Adequate is good enough nowadays.'    It makes total sense.  I agree completely.   But in order to be adequate, we had help.  Help from you, and so many others.   Thank you.