I think a bigger asymmetry than "hackers vs. governments" is "defense vs. offense" -- the state of computer security is laughable enough that the attacker will probably win, whoever he is.

If non-government hackers were building offensive tools, vs. defensive, and only had to win periodically vs. essentially all the time, they'd be able to put up a better fight. Government doesn't have a particular monopoly on competence, and internal politics and budget issues probably would allow a relatively capital-poor non-governmental enterprise to do pretty well vs. a contractor/government team.