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I think one of the main ways in which computers have changed the way we make music is in drastically reducing the 'division of labour' required in the recording process. Nowadays it is possible and common for someone to write, perform, record, and mix their own material. Obviously this is generally a lot cheaper than having a big team of people involved - also it gives the musician much more control over how their final product sounds. I think many modern musicians have got used to and enjoy the control they get working on a DAW with infinite undo / redo, graphable automation, sample-accurate cutting and all that jazz - and they are unwilling to hand over control to someone else for the 'last stage'. Especially when that someone else is liable to squash the mix like crazy, seriously changing balances that the musician spent a long time getting the way they wanted. The final transfer to cd is also easily done at home, as opposed to cutting a vinyl master.
Specialized mastering engineers aren't the only ones loosing out to all-in-one productions, and are also not the only ones with good arguments for their existance. Surely it's possible to get a better vocal performance just concentrating on the delivery (ie. having someone else engineer the recording) rather than thinking about tracking as well? But then the engineer might get something wrong and mess up your perfectly good vocal take...
I suppose what I'm saying is that often (in my experience at least) the decision to do it oneself is based on a lack of trust in anothers abilities / fear that they will do something you don't like and can't control, rather than on a budgetting issue. People would rather trust themselves than someone else.
Having said all that I think single-man productions are generally inferior to team efforts, with the exception some technically simple or electronic productions where hearing one idiosyncratic genius at work is better than hearing a polished team do their thing.
Cheers
Matthew
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