If you ask someone who was published through the Big Publishing Houses, "does it make sense to self-publish"...
... you are going to get a VERY biased answer.
The self-publishing industry is in competition with the trad-pub industry.
#1 rule of business -- don't advertise the competition.
Since self-publishing seems to be alive and well, (thriving, in fact) I would venture to say it might indeed be a good idea.
The real secret is that your chances aren't very good as a trad-pubbed author, and they aren't very good as a self-pubbed author either.
Both compete against video games/TV/movies for peoples' attention spans.
But there are plenty of success stories in the trad-pub industry, and there are plenty of success stories in the self-pub industry.