I think you hit the issue on the nose. I've spent the last few (~2?) years committed to the people management role, and have improved immensely.

While 2 years isn't a large amount of time, it is enough time to start noticing myself starting to become technically out of date. And I agree, it hasn't been possible to do both. That in turn means I feel like I need to make a decision one way or the other now, because if I don't, in another year or two, I may not have the option.

I wrote about the difficulty I am having in choosing to permanently commit here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19486404, if you have a few minutes