By that measure, the senior developer on a 'special projects' team reporting directly to a CxO could be quite high status. Similarly, the US National Security Advisor only has a small staff reporting to them, but their influence on US policy is as great or greater than the Secretary of Defense and/or Secretary of State.
I think another part of it is a lack of understanding of what developers actually do - people perceive developers as manual laborers that just type stuff into a computer based on what a higher-up has designed/created. They attribute the actual creative/engineering output to the manager.
It's also a low-paying job in a materialistic society. There's a feedback loop of Low pay -> no respect -> low pay that's hard to break out of.