Had very similar experiences at not even a "big company" it's more of a mentality of a "Big Co.". People hired to just not care, sit at meetings to make managers feel important and provide some pseudo progress to higer-ups to make things look like they are moving somewhere.

In reality, I have not doubt a half decent motivated engineer can replace a group of these unmotivated developers, which I have seen done and did my self in the past.

The real reason unmotivated engineers are there and things work this way in a company, in my experience, is bad management. Good people leave, who ever is left does what ever they can, those who care, suffer.