From the mid-1980s through 2000, stocks like Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT ) and Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO ) were growth powerhouses. In fact, if you had invested $10,000 in Microsoft in 1986 and the same amount in Cisco in 1990, you could have turned your $20,000 into about $8 million today. With growth like that, the prospect of earning a simple dividend seemed nothing more than a rounding error. But what a difference a decade, a financial crisis, and a marked slowdown in innovation and capital spending can make. In today's tech sector,big-cap tech companies are no longer synonymous with explosive growth. To continue reading, please click here...