I'm not disputing, I'm impressed and being debt free is an amazing luxury to have!
Freedom to do what you want does not increase linearly with income.
For example, one step is "Not affording any car" Now, affording any car allows way more freedom than not affording any car. A used, but good condition car can be a major improvement from a less reliable car, but it's not as major an improvement than car vs no car, but it comes with only a slight increase in income. A brand new car presents even less relative improvement from a good-condition used car, but requires a significant increase in income. A brand new exotic sports car is at the other end of the spectrum from "any car at all", an order of magnitude higher price for no practical value at all, but some increase in some kind of personal fulfillment or measure of success. Diminishing returns indeed. This applies to homes, goods, leisure activities.
So, unless you can get to the point of being "fuck you" rich, salary does not really matter.
It's not like 200k would grant me significantly more leisure time, probably quite the opposite, I'd be expected to work more and harder, for what? being able to buy the luxury car instead of just a normal car? Nah.
That's the main point of having a high salary for a lot of people.
It's about achieving freedom