In general, I agree, and certainly the attitude to certificates as described has been a widespread attitude anywhere I have ever worked over the last 15 years (UK).

There is distinct difference, I find, in people with and without a CS degree. It's a subtle thing, but it is in database design that I actually see it come out. People with the solid theory design less problematic databases and usually have a better feel for set-based operations.

In the non-database end of things, grads are more likely to have 'got' pointers.

But maybe its correlation not causality 🙂

Passion? hmm, it's just a job after all, maybe that's expecting too much from most of us.