I don't know, I've met some seriously talented, seriously underpaid programmers over the years. Money isn't everything, especially to people who live for the intellectual stuff.
Harder to measure than pay, but so is being a top 1% programmer. This can be a good reason to talk about pay -- an employer can claim excellent culture without any truth to it, but it's harder to self-deceive about money. And pay often correlates to important ephemerals like respect.
In regards to top 1% compensation, the true top 1% aren't hireable because they have their own startup companies. The top 1% compensation as has been discussed on HN before goes to domain experts. Lesson learned: become a domain expert.