I don't find your experience to be the general case, though that doesn't invalidate your point. Accolades are an easy intangible reward to hand out so you will

I don't find your experience to be the general case, though that doesn't invalidate your point. Accolades are an easy intangible reward to hand out so you will often see it given for heroics. Extra cash would be better. PTO is somewhere in the middle. On teams that can rotate through on-call, bonus PTO is more likely to be used than on ones where one or two engineers shoulder the responsibility all year.