In my company it's certainly the case that in order to progress on the technical track you need to be extremely good and more importantly on the right projects.

In my company it's certainly the case that in order to progress on the technical track you need to be extremely good and more importantly on the right projects. I see a lot of mediocre people advance on the management track but only very few advance above a certain level on the technical track. Considering that salary is directly tied to a person's rank I think it's a very rational decision to go into management even if that's not your inclination.