Not entirely disagreeing with your point but I think they've mostly been forced to pivot recently for their own sakes; they will never say it though. As much as they may seem eager the most public people tend to also be better at outside communication and knowing what they should say in public to enjoy more opportunities, remain employed or for the top engineers to still seem relevant in the face of the communities they are a part of. Its less about money and more about respect there I think.

The "sudden switch" since Opus 4.5 when many were saying just a few months ago "I enjoy actual coding" but now are praising LLM's isn't a one off occurrence. I do think underneath it is somewhat motivated by fear; not for the job however but for relevance. i.e. its in being relevant to discussions, tech talks, new opportunities, etc.