I've seen it stated several times here on hacker news that the visas should be available for the highest salaries. And that's it. No lottery. If you want them,

I've seen it stated several times here on hacker news that the visas should be available for the highest salaries. And that's it. No lottery. If you want them, pay them. That makes tons of sense to me on a lot of levels, it is going to naturally destroy abuse, recruit the best and brightest to come to the US, and not cause unfair discrimination against American workers. 1,600 visa workers for Cisco seems really low though. Anecdata, but my company hired a VP from Cisco and from that point until they left we made a lot of hires, but not a single American that I am aware of.