I can't promise you that, if you make the jump, you'll land someplace where your skills and efforts will be fully appreciated. Politics pops up wherever human beings are involved. You will probably still have to exert some effort to make sure people know what good work you're doing. But broadly, I think you are right: software is much better about rewarding actual contributions than the situation you describe (which sounds frankly hellish to me -- I can't imagine working in a place like that).