Have I ever remarked on how completely ridiculous it is to ask high school students to decide what they want to do with the rest of their lives and give them nearly no support in doing so?

Do we actually do that that much? The vast majority of high school students when I was in highschool had no idea what they wanted to do, and that was considered ok. Heck, a large fraction of people even when they were well into their undergraduate educations didn't know what they wanted to do and that was also considered ok. And as far as I can tell the general trend in high school education has been less emphasis on specific-job oriented classes as time has gone on.