But then the code monkeys have won.

I worked for a major institution's engineering group where we formally asked "We're getting recruited all the time for more, will you raise comp to market to prevent people leaving?" Answer, "No." Annual attrition was 25%. At a recruiting/replacement cost of ~$40K, raises would have made more sense, but then managers would have failed to wield their power to "constrain their budget."

Logic need not apply.

It reminds me of an essay that Joel wrote.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html

Basically he points out that heavy use of methodology will get you guaranteed results. But that result is of very mediocre quality.

I turned down a job offer because it was about 10% below what I wanted. Four months later I saw the company complaining that they still hadn't filled the spot - I wonder if they think they made the right choice in refusing to negotite. (Probably they do, and they continued to do so with other candidates).

I keep seeing the same ad for a job that I was contacted about a few months back. I refused to do their hour and a half hacker rank challenge on the basis that is nothing like how I work on a day to day basis, and I have examples of real work online if they need to see that I can code.