I'm not sure why you'd assume that being okay with being paid average (or even slightly below) is such a crime. How does this translate to the company being filled with "terrible employees" and the like? I think you're assuming that everyone's goal in life is to just make as much money as possible and damn the risk. It's not.

The company I work for has been around for more than 10 years but is very small and fiscally conservative. I've worked for plenty of high paying startups (often from home and coffee shops and doing interesting things) who die in less than half the time this one has been around. In some cases, they died because they were paying above average wages in a misguided attempt to compete for the best of the best. That didn't work out so well. Of the 5 or so startups I've been with in the last few years, only Tapulous remains in business. Sure, they all paid great and I got rid of my debt during those years, but it didn't work out so well for them, did it?