> I'm not sure I understand why people are so eager to conflate the term "10x engineer" with "an arrogant engineer who is only seemingly productive because of either obfuscation or generation of technical debt".

Part of it is defensive posturing. I have encountered corporate developers who are hardly, or not, literate in their primary programming language yet see their capabilities as average or the norm. A productive person popping their delusional dunning-Kruger bubble may very well seem arrogant to them.