Technology Business - Where's the money?

I have a consulting business in New Jersey (USA), called Nytech Inc. - I started the company in 1994, just at the dawn of the Web Age. See http://www.ny-tech.com

By all accounts Nytech is a small consulting business, but it has had a very successful run of high-profile projects with multinational clients like BMW and Merrill Lynch. Nytech designs and develops Web Sites, Intranets, Data Models for its clients. Nytech also does Business Analysis, and Website Traffic Analysis.

However, now, in 2006 I find myself out of a contract. I was consulting at the same client for the last 7 years, since 1999. Now that I'm in the market again, I find it to be a very different place.

I posted my resume on the usual resume sites (Monster, Dice, etc.), and in the first two weeks, I got a huge flurry of phone calls and emails - I was averaging about 70 emails and 30 phone calls in the first week after posting my resume online. But the flurry died down as quickly as it started. My rate is the problem, not my skills or experience.

My rate (which is the same as it was in 1999), makes most clients balk. My questions to you:

1) What is your experience as a Web Consultant in today's market?
2) Are clients directly comparing consulting rates in the U.S. to the (supposedly) lower costs of getting the same work done in India and elsewhere? Is there really any merit to this comparison?
3) Is there really any future for technology consulting (including Web Development) in the U.S., or is the entire industry headed downhill?
4) What is the "hot" Web technology on the horizon? One hears terms like "RSS" and Web Services, but how can these be leveraged here in the US, and not be immediately outsourced?