Why? The more skill required, the smaller the candidate pool, and the higher the wage. For these truly exceptional talents it does not seem at all weird to me t

Why? The more skill required, the smaller the candidate pool, and the higher the wage. For these truly exceptional talents it does not seem at all weird to me that truly exceptional compensation is warranted. But that is just another way of stating the real problem here: the H1-B program isn't used to hire exceptional talent that cannot be found locally. It is currently used to hire rather typical talent at an exceptional discount.