If you are a company trying to integrate the idea of Unit Testing into a company and it is a new concept, I guess this practice could be acceptable. I think context really matters. I've put a lot of thought into this throughout the day, and I'm completely torn. On one hand I see the benefits of trying compensation to it, but I also just see it creating more problems than solutions. Especially if later on it becomes a cultural standard in the office, how on Earth are you going to remove that benefit (because you no longer need to encourage it) without pissing people off?

Also for the latter point I guess that also depends on context. If you work for a consulting company you may not have the full knowledge of what the code base is, or even have direction to be touching some things. If you are developing software for your own company, I do agree you need to figure these things out, and maybe having a developer dedicated to it each sprint isn't a bad idea. I overstepped my bounds on that comment, as I have never worked for a company that makes its own software it sells, I've only ever done consulting and I sometimes forget about alternative perspectives, so sorry about that.