The Art of the Board Operator.

OK, I am currently working as one of the board op's at a venue in Adelaide for the Fringe Festival. The venue is hostig a number of shows from interstate and overseas and we have (there are two of us) a variety of different types of lighting to operate. It ranges from a very precise show with something like 90+ preprogrammed lighting cues operated at the touch of a "Go" button to shows that are run off submasters cue by cue. Last week however I was handed an interesting task by a Japanese Theatre co who handed me a script with a number of marked cue points a list of colour washes focused two specials and to an extent left me to it. I had a ball, I was running a show on the fly. It all seemed to work well they have asked me to operate for them when they return next year. This brings me to my point. This is for the lighting guys and techies out there. The new digital technology with moving lights and DMX control with boards that will control huge numbers of fixtures is amazing. As a lighing designer I love it. It increases tenfold the subtlety that we can acheive and of course the show always looks as you originally intended which didn't always happen back in the days of preset boards. However is the art of the board op dying. When I started this business it was an art. We had cues to follow but we also had the ability to "feel" the show and run with that. This is still there to an extent in the smaller and middle range music lighting business but how much does it survive in the theatre world. Are we turning our board ops into button monkeys? Any comments?