The scouts have indeed changed.  Some changes seem for the better...women are
envolved in the organization, thus it is no longer necessary for one of the
adult males to be sacrifically placed into the role of "responsible adult".
In truth, I found that the women brought as much good and bad to the
organization as the men.

I became an Architecture meritbadge couselor....no respondents at all.  Except
for sales, scouts doesn't seem to have much to do with earning a living...but
it still teaches problem solving.

My complaint was that they travel and camp too heavy...and do not appreciate
the skills of planning and being prepared for an enjoyable wilderness trip.
(I equate happiness with light loads, good food, dry and warm with good stuff
to loook at.)

There is this male thing going on which is kind of hard to explain or talk
about.  You'd expect the scouts to have a real handle on how to manage a group
of boys and teach them something useful...and they do...but I know that my boy
and the two other young men on a canoe trip with a bunch of mostly male
historians got a better version of this than he did from the scouts.  It
drives my wife nuts, left alone I will bark orders at my son and expect to be
obeyed...explainations come after the order is obeyed...emotionally its
somehow related to survival...  I guess I'm not a nineties kind of guy
afterall.

So, if the scouts are not promoting the trades, or the skills that are
mastered early in a trades education, should they be?  If so, shouldn't trades
persons be scout leaders?  Isn't teaching young men to value work and problem
solving part of the responsibility of being a master craftsman?