I think this attitude arises in part because upper management in a non-software firm doesn't have any way to measure the quality of the programmers they employ.

I think this attitude arises in part because upper management in a non-software firm doesn't have any way to measure the quality of the programmers they employ. It may be because they don't use the software, because their process minimizes the influence of individual programmers, or it may just be that they have no appreciation for all the mistakes avoided in the development process. If management can't see the difference in value-add between a seasoned hacker and a new CS graduate, they won't pay for it.