Hmm. I don't find the message(s) ambiguous unless you take 1,400 pages of fiction and metaphor and attempt to take it much more literally than is intended. As, I find, is often the case with readers of this book.

The entire work is about dynamics and relationships - money simply being a physical manifestation of love, respect, power, intelligence and so on. It is not the money itself that ever matters in the book, it is not the money that is the end, it is the exchange of the currency as an exchange of the virtues just listed.

The desire to make money is the desire to have those relationships in which virtues are valued and traded and exchanged. The desire to make money is the desire of a dynamic. The conflict arises in finding that while nurturing those same virtues as the individual self, while nurturing the individual relationship and dynamic with the mind, a good portion of the rest of the world simply wants the ends that same individual's means provide with nothing to give in exchange but guilty resentment and condemnation.

As for the "average people," I think the point is simply not to be average. That's not saying everyone has to be a Galt caliber genius, but more so speaks to the notion that one must always excel to the extent of one's abilities. Look at Dagny's railroad - it is built on the backs of thousands of average Joes, countless "blue collar" characters. And, I suspect, she has a respect and a version of love for them all. They are an obvious part of the dynamic and the world that she adores.

The old folks and the children? Again, I would encourage readers to look for the symbolism in the story and what is contained within the words as opposed to what was omitted. Children lack a lot of the self-aware perspective that the story speaks to, while the characters focused on as the "heroes" are vibrant in all aspects of their descriptions. The older characters (the men's professor, Reardon's mother, etc.) speak I think very well to things past.