[dylan604]

I'd say continuous pay. If it's your job and you're good enough to keep it, your continuous pay check is just the agreed upon exchange for doing said work. If you're not good enough, then that pay stops (or you're promoted to management). If you do something above and beyond expected for job, then bonuses are what is used to reward. Sure, some peer recognition or other non-monetary award might be appropriate for certain things, but if it is something that allows new income to company, saves company significant time/money, etc, then cash is king!

[vostok]

I'm actually ok with discrete pay.

I get that it's culturally difficult to lower salaries so companies don't feel comfortable paying very large salaries as they'll never be able to reduce them in lean years.

Bonuses/RSUs/etc seem like perfectly reasonable ways to pay people what they deserve without paying unsustainable high salaries that are very difficult to ever decrease if times get tough or if high performance is no longer achieved.