I guess we all find different optima. To me it's not really being treated like an idiot, it's "we need to have a policy that takes into account that most of the people are idiots, you smart guys work around it if necessary".

I don't know where you work, but off-hand I would postulate that working at "such places" also has advantages over where you work (e.g. better work-life balance, living in an area where property prices are not insane, etc.). As I said, we find different optima in these tradeoffs.