well, for the most part you are right. I'm of the opinion that people who are trying to create their fortune through stocks are in for a rough surprise. There is simply no way to go from $10,000 to $1,000,000 in stocks without waiting your whole life. The same goes for buying houses or buildings and renting them out.
All these things are wealth preservation tools, they will earn you a normal rate of return on your money, somewhere between 6-12% over the long term. To actually become wealthy before you are over the hill or justp lain old, you have to be able to create the money some other way, either by having an extremely high paying job (hmm... did I just see someone walking on the sky, matt?) or by creating/owning a business and building it to an enterprise worth millions.