I wouldn't call it sad at all. It's all a game, and these are the people that are playing to win (by their definition of "winning", which is a lot of people's: maximizing monetary gains)

I agree with a lot of what you say (and in fact, I work at a company that doesn't allow negotiations at all and has an open salary calculator: http://stackoverflow.com/company/salary/calculator ) but I wouldn't call it sad at all, I would call it playing the game.

I'm saying without any attempt at being rude: You're thinking way too much like a programmer.