The real problem with the 10x programmer idea is that the programmers we all think of do not necessarily write more code, or even write a given piece of code faster, they write more valuable code -- code that most other programmers simply wouldn't or couldn't write.

My favorite example of this is the -2000 lines of code story about Bill Atkinson (QuickDraw, MacPaint, HyperCard):

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Lin...