[chrisbennet]

No, I think "standard market rates" are what employers are paying their engineer who has been there for a few years (and whom they are currently paying below what he/she could get if they left for another job) or possibly what someone would pay for a "standard software engineer" who really needed a job.

If you want to attract exceptional engineers then by gosh, you might just have to pay exceptional salaries.

At the end of the day, it's a business relationship and an intelligent engineer is quite justified in capturing some of the value that he or she generates.