Well, trading in my book is managing risk, not being a button pushing execution chimp. Neither IB jobs nor private equity jobs reach the same salary potential of a trader that manages his bank or hedge fund risk, at least not until MD level.
Probably depends on what definition of trading you're using. If you're talking about the guys on trading desks, that's pretty far down the totem pole compared to the people putting together structured products for clients that they then send down to the trading desks to execute, for example. And of course anything buy-side that includes carry is going to almost always going to be a better salary and upside than trading.
If you're talking sales....if you can sell you can make big bucks pretty much anywhere, and absolutely you'd be wasting your talents doing pretty much anything else. Of course if you can really sell you'd also be wasting your time and talents getting a masters degree of any kind unless it was just for intellectual curiosity, which of course is a more than valid reason to do so.

