J2EE Certificate .. is it worth?

Sun Certified Enterprise Architect .. hmm .. sounds cool..

I was anxious about this certificate, thus invested some money to prepare for it.
However, when doing my research to know more about this certificate, especially its advantages for career advancement,
I soon figured out that it seems not really important.

Some of information that I found were like this:

"... Certification does not really matter .. It is experience does matter"
Quoted from one of J2EE evangelist out there.
He said companies will prefer more to people with longer experience then younger ones but with Certificate.

J2EE, actually EJB 1.x / 2.x, was losing its popularity due to the nature of its specification .. heavyweight, high learning curve, difficult performance tuning ..etc.
And unfortunately, EJB 2.x is part of SCEA curriculum.
Well .. I don't know if it is still .. or perhaps upgraded to EJB 3.0?

Gaining certificate for J2EE requires lots of costs - time and money. However, your current employer would be hesitant to increase your package significantly. At least, this is what I heard from others.
Thus, in terms of ROI, I think this will not be a good investment though!

Other certifications in Management, such as PMP (Project Management Professional) attracts employers more
.. which means more money for the achiever!

Now I feel so confuse on how to accelerate my career, just working smarter seems not enough nowadays.
I think there must be a way to advance my career to the next level without certification (?)

Anybody, what do you think about this?