Why choose an academic career today?

I have enjoyed my career choice, but notice recently some rather negative opinions about being an academic scientist today:
Peter Cameron's decision
Why I am not a professor
Women in Science - they found better jobs!
Sydney Uni vice-chancellor maintains cuts good for morale
Technical Program Integrity Committee Actions


We are just going through the exercise of evaluating Italian universities, largely using as criteria of research excellence the commercial resources Scopus and Science Citation Index.  As far as I can see hardly any articles will be read to judge their excellence - the committees may try.
However each academic must submit three articles for evaluation and the committee to judge mathematics and computer science consists of 25 people (8000+ articles?) :
 Quarteroni Alfio Maria Politecnico di MILANO
 Abate Marco Universita' di PISA
 Bellomo Nicola Politecnico di TORINO
 Bressan Alberto Penn State University
 Brezis Haim Rutgers University, NJ, USA
 Brezzi Franco I.U.S.S. - Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori - PAVIA
 Buttazzo Giuseppe Mario Universita' di PISA
 Caporaso Lucia Universita' degli Studi ROMA TRE
 Castagna Giuseppe CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE
 Ciancarini Paolo Universita' degli Studi di BOLOGNA
 De Concini Corrado Universita' degli Studi di ROMA "La Sapienza"
 De Santis Alfredo Universita' degli Studi di SALERNO
 Esteban Maria J. CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE - CNRS
 Fagnola Franco Politecnico di MILANO
 Ferrari Elena Universita' degli Studi INSUBRIA Varese-Como
 Fusco Nicola Universita' degli Studi di NAPOLI "Federico II"
 Gentili Graziano Universita' degli Studi di FIRENZE
 Giacardi Livia Universita' degli Studi di TORINO
 Martello Silvano Universita' degli Studi di BOLOGNA
 Salamon Simon Politecnico di TORINO
 Samarati Pierangela Universita' degli Studi di MILANO
 Sassone Vladimiro UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
 Simoncini Valeria Universita' degli Studi di BOLOGNA
 Toscani Giuseppe Universita' degli Studi di PAVIA
 Yoshida Nobuko IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON