Not everyone has the appetite for litigation. It can be expensive in cash, time, and relationships. Anyone supporting a family will need to consider the effect it will have on the family. We aren't all brave enough to fight against such a powerful adversary even if no one else would be negatively affected by doing it.

Of course population level passivity in the end allows the adversary to win but it's hard to be the first to stand on the front line.

Litigation is absolutely horrible. There is a reason they say "you can't fight city hall."

The gov will burn itself down to fight you in court. They generally don't like to settle because losing just means they may have to raise taxes or insurance premiums. No gov attorney is likely to actually lose their job because they fought too long or hard and lost.

As I understand it, they like to settle with non-disclosure agreements.

Very common. This often stops the amount being put in the court records, but having settled one recently I think it is hard to hide these payouts from an informed, determined member of the public.

For instance, my settlement had to go through the financial committee of the county. Which means the lawsuit was scheduled as a line item in a televised public debate. Also, you could at least FOIA the bank records to a degree and reverse-engineer any payouts.

A properly scathing resignation letter catches media attention better than anything you say after being fired, which would be interpreted by many as whining.