I hope I never have to look for a job again but with the way my business has gone lately, I may need to start thinking about it in a few years.
I've also been coding for 25 years, most of that professionally. I'm not sure I could pass a tech interview.
Well there are many smaller projects than the kernel that still use the email workflow. To me it's simple, not archaic. You're right though, you definitely would miss out on contributors but that's just the reality of the dev world today.