A coupla thoughts Thrill. First off, the studio's rationale (at least the one that I'm associated with) for charging so much for media is that it's the only place to make any kind of profit. While, I agree that some of the prices are absurd, look at it like this. Most studios are at rates lower than they were 20 years ago while the cost of doing business has skyrocketed.
Secondly, nearly ALL of the studios that I work at DO promote exclusively from within. But the truth is that there aren't any staff engineers anymore. Assistant Engineer is the platau and some of the majors have the same assistants for many years. None of the majors here in NYC have anything other than GAs and Asst Engineers on staff with specialty shops such as Big Blue Meenie being the exception rather than the rule.
Basically, you start as a runner and work you way up though the food chain.
And Third, I'm not sure that I know many people that can afford space in Manhatten these days, but we CAN dream
