I also did this, but it's so hard to find lasting stable relationships, within 6-12 months it's always a different team somehow. In that case you feel double screwed if you compromised on salary and then the awesome team disbanded and you're left with a shitty team and a low salary.

Better to go for the high salary which you know will be stable, and will always "work" in the sense of giving benefit to your life. And take any awesome colleagues as a random happy accident and a pure bonus.

It seems in my experience smaller companies can avoid these issues. No chance of your team being shuffled around because there's just one team. Usually you will find some employees at smaller orgs have been there working with the boss, who is probably the sole founder/owner of this tiny shop, for like a decade or more, you watch peoples kids grow up and such, etc. Sometimes people leave just to become freelancers, but because of how tight the relationship is sometimes almost nothing changes day to day and they are still very involved with certain projects. I wouldn't feel that comfortable at a big org where labor is just a unit to be moved around either. You won't be maximizing your compensation working like this, but I find maybe the reduction in stress hormones might be its own sort of compensation. Find a family, basically.