I was drawn to your original post as I have been feeling the same way as of late and was curious to see what others had to say. Maybe I’ll write up a similar post as well.
As I read through your posts and feedback I thought that exhibit design might be a good fit for you as well; it is fast paced, highly brand driven, high importance is placed on creativity, and depending on the exhibit firm you work at you may find yourself exposed to many different industries, brands, etc.
I should clarify that I’m talking about trade show exhibit design and not necessarily exhibit installation design, however some firms do both in addition to retail, pop-up retail, and P.O.P. Trade show exhibit design is a niche facet of design, which means there’s almost always demand for good designers, the down-side is you can become pigeonholed through becoming good at it.
If this interests you I would recommend that you really research it, there are lots of facets within the industry like pop-up displays, modular, custom-modular, and then full custom, and experiential firms. Based on your posts I would recommend looking for an experiential firm that does a broader range of projects than just trade show design. Also key, and one of the cons of the trade show design industry is that the majority of design work is spec design and it is highly sales driven, that said there are some companies that take more of an agency style consultative approach, and these tend to be more designer friendly. Of course you can freelance in this industry, and you will be paid regardless of the spec aspect, but you really gotta know your stuff to make a good living.