None of us objected to you saying that people refer to Cupertino as being in the South Bay. What we objected to was the second half of that sentence: "... rather than the Bay Area." As written, this implies that the people in question believe that the South Bay is not part of the Bay Area, which is delusional. Maybe you didn't intend to say that, but that's what you wrote, and what everyone responded to.

Regarding "great" vs. "competent" engineers: every company needs a mix of them. There aren't enough truly great engineers for even just Apple or Google to be entirely staffed by them, much less all of the other companies out there. So everyone needs to make do with merely competent engineers in some roles.

You mentioned in a sibling comment that the engineers in question "contract at Apple"; here you wonder if Apple is merely "hiring competent engineers to implement a roadmap". But that's exactly what all companies hire contractors for, whereas great engineers who are "let loose to think different" are typically permanent employees.