I strongly believe that it's something for everyone to consider. I'm 50-something in the MidWest and left my well paying job early this year for similar reasons. (I 'fired' my employer.) It's also related to a basic rule in life: Never work a job that you don't like. Think of the percentage of your life which is spent at/on work related activities, and if you aren't enjoying it and/or cannot stand the choices management is making and it's eating at your soul, then it makes no sense to stay there. Now, you certainly will always have minor annoyances, as no job is going to be perfect. And you may have to take a shit-job on occasion for special circumstances for a limited time, but it's a general rule that I've preached all my life (as my father before me.) If you are in a job that you don't like, declare it as a shit-job that's allowed to continue for a limited amount of time and find an alternative. I loved the vast majority of my previous job (and certainly disliked some parts) and I would have stayed, however the new private-equity installed board handcuffed me and my team where I simply couldn't do my job so I had to leave. I certainly have a distaste for private-equity types like the ones that have purchased Delphi and massively cut the R&D staff. They actually believe they can rely on cheap foreign developers for most of the work and the quality which is being produced today should provide ample proof that their plan is seriously flawed. But, they'll keep plugging away as the numbers likely look better with the much lower costs. And meanwhile we'll get repeated bad installs, required hotfixes after every single release (2 more today!), long-term infrastructure failures that should be a career embarrassment for everyone involved, platform support always putting out fires, and less and less core reliability. That's certainly not a successful long-term plan - so I assume their plan is to sell after showing large increases in bottom line due to all the cuts.
But back to the job issue - I think it would be better to work for yourself. I'll never have another boss again. I ran my own side business for 7 years and sold it after the Great Recession was over so I could concentrate on my corporate job. Running your own business is not for everyone though as you have to be able to manage the risk.