Good to hear. Most recruiters stick to the "counteroffers are bad" script pretty closely in all the articles they post. It's just dishonest and makes us all look bad.

Sadly based on my experience with recruiters the majority of them make you all look bad.

This is sadly accurate. I've had unemployed entry-level candidates say 'no thanks', and I have the benefit of a decent reputation based on my writings. It's getting difficult to do the job.

I think it helps to hug a specific community or two, and build a solid reputation.

I also spent a long time as a developer and successfully took counter offers a few times. Sometimes it really is just about the money, and your line manager needed the impetus to justify the cost to their manager