I totally agree, recognition is a big deal, but also very ephemeral and kind of an empty gesture. My mentors always credit me in talks they give (they are excellent and I am happy with them), but I have spent months of my life creating data and figures for grant applications that were won or not, and I practically get 0 credit or recognition for that work. My name is not on the grant, despite me doing ALL of the work for it because I am phd candidate and cannot actually get the funding from an NIH R01.

The vast majority of my work will go completely uncredited (both inside and outside of academia) unless someone inside academia that I might want to work with happened to see my mentors talk. If I leave academia, I have no 'proof of work' for anything outside my paper and thesis (no one will read it). I can't claim authorship on very important 500K+ grants that I practically wrote and won myself, but others take credit for it. Those don't go on my CV/resume, and if they did then people looking could look up the grant and see I am not in fact listed as an author or contact. I've come to realize that this is a huge problem.