I suppose - I just find it strange that most of the IT initiatives directly support the success of a business, and when the company sends the top 10 producing sales team members to a free Caribbean trip, and buy luxury cars for others for a year I'm sure they could shell out something for other teams rather than buying a pizza or lunch every so often.

This is just an observation as well, so I could be completely incorrect in my thinking.

Its a great observation and one that I think has struck many people. I would be interested in hearing a sales person and development person put their views on the table about the subject so we could see both sides and compare motivators between the two roles.

I would agree! While I'm not looking for handouts or anything like that the email blasts (company wide) really do sort-of shove it in everyone else's faces unintentionally.

I might take action on this and ask our customers individually what they would like and compare across roles. If I sort this data I will definitely post my findings.

I think that would be very interesting - I hope you do sort it and share!