1) "Do more with less" s pretty much the motto of every MBA I've met. It's a big problem. There definitely is a trend towards less qualified workers being available, but a big reason for that is almost no one is willing/able/can afford to train workers into the job. I see this everywhere: engineering, install, maintenance, operations.
Specifically to your point, I've started to see a big trend towards lights out facilities (no humans in the process). I've even seen some companies looking at trying to automate maintenance.
3)Agreed
4)I've had a lot of customers tell me that they have more data than they can handle. What they really want isn't more data logging, its systems to tell them what data is important. The main "help" they want with decisions is something to tell them what to do.