It seems to me that the biggest advantage to being a generalist is that as parents, we can identify what a kid is good at, and can start him down that road. Things go wrong when a parent is not himself enough of a generalist to figure out what the kid likes, and just pushes him toward something random or prestigious.
As for those that object to what you say, I wonder why they insist on putting words in your mouth. Perhaps they don't believe that a young kid could be interested in any deep topic without coercion; which relieves them of the responsibility to try to find what this topic could be. But my attitude is that as a parent, I may not find it, or maybe it's not there, but the potential upsides are large enough that I will keep thinking about it.