What's with all this actor love?

I don't get the big deal about actors. Whenever you read some book about acting, there's always a paragraph about how acting is so difficult because you have to have immediate, on-call access to your emotions. The last time I saw this sentiment in print was when I read through Frank Miller's The Spirit blog in which he talks about how Eva Mendez was able to stay in character after waiting for 10 hours. What is the big deal? It's not that acting shouldn't be respected. But I can't see how this kind of performing is any more difficult than other kinds of performing. You could say the same thing about directors. As a director you're performing on set making decisions that will ripple through your entire project. And when you're shooting with expensive sets and actors you have the make the calls right—now. And if you're doing a good job, I'm sure you're using your emotions as much as an actor. And what about instructors? Imagine going into a class and then improvising the ideas, words and emotions for a discussion. I think performances are built into many of the activities we do. It's not the act of acting that is so remarkable, but the lively quality of a spirited performance.