[timr]

"I suppose that we'll have a revival in the way we measure employees....would [people] pay for a tool to help them identify and retain these quiet superstars?"

Perhaps, but I don't think it would help. The way things are isn't necessarily bad...it's just human nature. Give a cage full of monkeys a new incentive system, and the monkeys will learn to game the system in order to get more bananas. Give them a tool that lets the quiet monkeys make more noise, and the loud monkeys will use it to make themselves even louder.

Generally speaking, hyper-rational people (like most geeks) try to fight this trend at first, but they eventually come to the conclusion that it's easier and better to just play the game.