So, even if you made $280K at Google, you'll get the $140K offer for that role because $140K is the top end of that range. You could get targeted into a different rank to get into a different range if you're work it. This is where you end up in a different title or level. It's much easier in the HR system to click the different title in the drop-down for you, than it is to get escalations and approvals to pay you outside the defined salary bands.

Note there are definitely some places with weirdly wide job bands. eg. some of the big banks has ranges that vary hugely to account for differences between the trading and back-office salaries - eg. VP on a trading desk with high salary vs VP in IT with low to middling.

1) Big companies already decided what your job position is worth, and don't have time to negotiate. They have 75,000 other employees, growing that to 75,001 is not worth special-casing you.

2) Small companies have not realized how expensive custom software is yet, and are low-balling you out of general ignorance. Or, when they're aware of the true price, they decide they don't need custom software anymore. (Which I think, in many cases, is the right decision.)

I still think that making the employer put a number or a range down, which might translate into some market research, would benefit everyone.