Good read, thanks for sharing you perspective on learning security and hacking / cracking . I believe they go hand in hand.

Someone has tried to put this into a organized curriculum for learning hacking however I totally agree you can not really rely on it completely. The knowledge depth and breadth is too much for doing this kind of job. You can surely start with a few tools and build up from there on. To grow in long run you must know many things in depth and be on your toes to learn anything new.