It's simple -- the more high-minded and snobbish the developer class will be (thus extracting the highest salaries in the world) and as long as they will continue to maintain this unreal amount of gatekeeping, the more the non-developer community (especially those at the leadership-level) will continue to revel at the prospect of eliminating developers from the value chain.

I think you're onto something. Replace "developers" with "doctors" I that statement and you've described healthcare in the mid 1900s. Replace with "masons" and we describe the medieval times. There is always a specialized class