Grog, that is a worthy pursuit. 90,000 postdocs in the US, and 24,000 tenure track faculty jobs. Too few people know this important fact and get their PhDs without knowing what they'll do with them.

lph, I think it's awesome that you're considering a career change, whether you go through with it or not. Something I learned recently is that it doesn't have to be a choice between this or that. Sometimes you can have both, and there's more than one way to skin a cat (isn't that a horrid saying?). For years I've secretly and guiltily dreamed of dropping out of academia and going into bicycle advocacy full time. (Guiltily because if I did that, why then did I get the PhD and endure so many years of postdoc servitude?) Then I started up the bike/ped advocacy group and realized that I'd rather be president of this group than executive director. My day job supports my bike advocacy habit.

In other words although my deep dark secret desire was to quit academia and go into bike/ped advocacy full time, my real desire is simply bike/ped advocacy and I can do that without quitting my day job. Which is nice on the family finances, and I love my new employer (which is not a Research I institution) and I enjoy research again, though I may never be as passionate about it as I was when I first began graduate school, such a naive young thing that I was.

Good luck finding the path that works for you!