I don't necessarily agree with the "low prestige" argument. I think that as the internet becomes a greater part of young people's lives (i.e. myspace), the industry becomes more hip and being a programmer for lets say Yahoo! or Google carries a "cooler" image
A programmer for google or yahoo, sure. A programmer for Microsoft or Adobe, not so much. Moreover, outside the big names, software companies are largely unknown; to most of us, hearing that someone works for, e.g, Fog Creek, is pretty nifty, but to the average person, it's meaningless.
Very true, but maybe our overall image is gradually improving, esp. as the tech/internet generation matures.