The counterargument is that a super-important 20k-a-month person may not want to waste their important time on unnecessary meetings. More is lost by wasting that person's time.
From experience, some of those 20k+ a month are usually the culprits for scheduling an outrageous number of meetings. God forbid someone is working on something without "following up" or heaven forbit they couldn't get to establish what to do "moving forward".
The bottom line is that while attending every meeting may sound ideal, it's often not feasible or even necessary for employees at certain experience and salary levels. There can be good reasons for missing meetings that have nothing to do with motivation.