"Stupid fish, can't climb a tree"

Far from dead-end, I think front end is a much more dynamic field that offers much more career options. You are essentially translating extraordinarily complicated engineering solutions and translating them into human design. This makes you valuable in many, many more fields because the skills you need are of broader use.

Front end people rise the ranks all of the time, but usually not through engineering departments. Because it's such a human-oriented skill, your career ceiling is determined by your interpersonal skills. I know lots of frontend engineers who have risen to prominence through Consulting, UX, Marketing, etc.

I think your current benchmark is wrong - you probably shouldn't care about being the king of the greybeards.