[jimbokun]

What is your end goal?

C-level executive? Having your own start up? Retire early? Researcher who goes to a lot of conferences and applies state of the art techniques to solve problems?

Sounds like most of the things you are working on are just making you a more efficient cog in large organizations. But in terms of compensation, sounds like the skills you are pursuing will have diminishing returns for increasing your compensation, with out a clear goal and road map for where you want to end up.