I think one semi-standard response to a common context-based skill incentive pattern is called "strategic incompetence". Fundamentally the pattern is "I can't do that tedious and thankless job, because I'm just not good at it." Low prestige office jobs are the classic example.
A google search against lesswrong turned up no mention of "strategic incompetence" which was something of a surprise to me.
One of the key issues that comes up around strategic incompetence is that it raises ethical complexities relative to egalitarian work norms where "everyone should do their part" and people with cultivated incompetence can "shirk" without it seeming like they are obviously shirking. In programming/scifi/geek contexts the contrasting virtue goes along with the slogan that specialization is for insects. This is one the reasons I like such contexts :-)
(Edited to add: Voting patterns seem tragic here from the perspective of rewarding that which causes good content. I'm saying something that people (currently) seem to think is worth "10" and the only reason I'm saying it is because katydee raised an interesting, more personal, and more general point that I could riff on, but the original article only has "3" and I'm one of those who upvoted it. This seems like evidence that "propagating reward back through the chain of causality that leads to good content" is not how people are voting... hence, the voting seems somewhat tragic. I wish people would up their voting game, because I want this forum to get better over time, not worse.)
Ooh. I just used this "strategic incompetence" thing earlier this week. The other fixed their problem without me and hopefully learned something too. Everybody wins!
One useful little concept that a friend and I have is that of the antiskill. Like a normal skill, an antiskill gives you both the ability and the affordance to do things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. The difference between a skill and an antiskill is that a skill gives you the ability and affordance to do things that are positive on net, while an antiskill gives you the ability and affordance to do things that are negative on net.
For instance, my friend believes that dancing is often an antiskill, because it gives you an affordance to dance rather than have interesting conversations while at parties, and he considers having interesting conversations to be much more valuable than dancing-- therefore, knowing how to dance serves primarily to enable choices that are bad on net.
I disagree with the specific point in this case, but I nevertheless think it's a good example because it illustrates another key principle of skills and antiskills-- whether something is a skill or an antiskill is context-dependent. If dancing will largely prevent you from having interesting conversations, it may well be an antiskill-- but if you go to a lot of nightclubs where loud music makes conversation difficult, knowing how to dance seems very useful indeed!
Another example is the skill of knowing how to fix computers. In many respects this is very useful, and can indeed lead to a profitable career in IT. But-- as I'm sure many of you may have experienced-- having your friends and family know that you know how to fix computers can be very negative on net!
Overall, I find the skill/antiskill framework quite useful when it comes to navigating what sorts of skills, abilities, and knowledge I should acquire. Before choosing my next priority, I often pause to think:
Using this framework has enabled me to discern strengths and weaknesses that I had previously not considered, and in some cases those strengths and weaknesses have proven decisive to my planning.