Who Cares About Skyscrapers Anyway?

One thought that has been on my mind for quite some time is the idea of skyscrapers. Some of the most famous and iconic buildings in the world are skyscrapers: the Sears Tower, the Empire State Building, the Pelli Towers in Kuala Lumpur, the Space Needle. One interesting thought when it comes to these buildings is that the balance between the function of the building (for most: mixed-use retail, office and residential) and the form of the building is far skewed from other buildings. The look and resonance of the building is weighed to be far more important than what the building actually accomplishes on a programmatic basis, and therefore we see that the program becomes meaningless.
Rem Koolhaas took on this idea in his book from the 70's, Delirious New York. As I'm sitting in New York at the moment, I think that I can understand some of the thoughts that he was trying to convey in that publication. A skyscraper has no program, and therefore can be anything. A skyscraper can take on whatever form it likes, and yet the spaces created within it will still serve a function for whatever purpose it is used for, regardless of the decrease in practicality. Buildings that are going up now in China and Dubai, the centers of most large-scale architecture, are meant to BE something, not DO something, and there is quite a difference in how they function.
One theory for this is that it is a product of mass production. Because a building that has 60 or 90 or 120 floors could obviously not be tailored to its every need, every floor is the same and therefore has no program. This makes sense in a logical way, but I think there are limits to this idea. When architects design a building that is in the form of a giant sphere, for example, the idea that this building has no program because it cannot be specified falls though. Then, why do architects do this? I think it is because this idea of iconic architecture has run rampant in our contemporary world. Frank Gehry could be easily pinned with starting this trend, but I have no doubts that it started earlier than his heyday, and that it will continue past his time. We as a society value something that is flashy and memorable rather than something that doesn't leak, has good natural lighting, and makes its users more productive.
Some of this argument is related to my previous post, but I think that on a large scale, there is nothing that can really be done to change how these buildings are designed and made. There is no way to add craft to a 1200 foot tower. There is no way to program and building that has no program. I think that with the recent economic downturn, as so many like to call it, that a lot of these ideals will change, and the 'era of extravagance' will come to an end. Design will be forced to consider new ideas, such as sustainability, responsibility, and practicality. Skyscrapers will always be the exception, however, and I think that it will always be a niche design field that will never truly have meaning. Skyscrapers are built for two reasons: to maximize the amount of space that we have, and to make an icon. Maybe one day the latter will become less important, but I think that sentiment will take a long time to die.