I've been an L5, L6, L7 and L8 at Amazon over the last 10 years. My experience is that once you've been here a while the total comp is a rollercoaster that follows the stock price. I haven't had a salary increase since I was L6 (and don't want one!) ... so for me it all comes down to when I got stock and how it performed over the next few years. Personally I've done very well that way, as it's nearly always outperformed expectations. I think that tenured people like me skew the comp distribution because of that factor.

In general though, although it's human and natural, I wouldn't focus on what I make vs my colleagues or try to measure worth quite like that. It's simpler to think about it terms of "What would I make elsewhere and would I really be willing to leave and go through the disruption and risk of a change in jobs for that".