Maybe I'm wrong about this, but haven't most of these 'quit/don't go' essays come from academics in the humanities? Are there similar essays coming from science or engineering grad students / tenured professors?
I see the "I quit" genre more from CS/engineering professors, but that's probably because I'm on HN a lot. It would be somewhat interesting to compare the humanities subgenre and the STEM subgenre.
Also yesterday I had a long conversation with my neighbor at work (former math professor) about everything that's wrong with academia. He mentioned the phrase "loan farming".
And because it's quite easy to find an industry job if you're a good CS/engineering professor.
This seems especially true in biotech, though part of their concerns seem to be about how the new students will compete with them for grant dollars... see http://scientopia.org/blogs/drugmonkey/2013/01/28/shut-off-t... for an example.
1) Tenure is a different beast at some medical institutions where your funding comes almost entirely from your own grant support. There are tenured professors and it's fair to argue that tenure is important as a promotion, but if a tenured professors loses his/her grant funding, they can lose their office just like their un-tenured associates (I've heard of it but have not seen it personally).
2) The bigger problem is that tenured professors leave and head for prestigious jobs in the private industry. I always wondered why this was the case; I was enlightened talking to a spouse of a prestigious professor who said that in general the academic system treats even the tenured professor terribly. The big, big opportunities (and accompanying explosion in salary) are only in the private sector.
1. There is more money in being an engineering professor
2. Lots of PhD students in engineering never bother being professors of any kind (even non-tenure track) and just find an industry position with a big salary.