It's sad that there's this (reasonable, in many cases) assumption here that you have to be an executive to get treated decently (office instead of shitty cube or open-plan space, career support and severance upon termination).

I mean, I wouldn't advocate a generous severance for someone who just stops showing up, or who punches a co-worker in the face. You can cold-fire them. Programmers who do their jobs in good faith, on the other hand, belong in the "treat him well even if we don't need him" status bucket.