>hire someone with a PhD and years of experience to be a "web designer" (a very highly paid one, making 70k!) on paper but who actually does complex distributed systems that happen to serve web pages.

I worked at a law firm that specialized in immigration and that's exactly what happens. They deflate the title and experience and claim much less than they could/should. The employee doesn't protest because they are still coming out ahead from where they were. All the biggest tech companies are doing this too.