Your article perfectly reflects my view on self-improvement and the experience I have made in my work. Though, there is a hilarious exception to your contention of competence being "handsomely rewarded" : Incompetence is handsomely rewarded, too. Just look at some (or many?) of our so-called political elite. While one can joke about it in the spectator sport that is called the US presidental elections, incompetence is so rampant among political leaders here in Germany, that this country has been going downhill for the past 20 years. We have a history of appointing a medical doctor to the post of minister of defense, a "political scientist" to the post of health minister, and a plagiarist to head the foreign ministry. Once their incompetence has created enough damage to impossibly overlook, we elevate them to posts in the EU government (at higher salaries and even better fringe allowances).