The "choosing the easy professor path" always bothered me too; I always felt that it was stupid to go to college just to get the receipt, so I purposefully didn't do the ratemyprofessor thing, though now I almost wish I had, since I ended up on academic probation and eventually dropping out...though that might have less to do with my class selection and more to do with me spending most of my time playing Minecraft, upon reflection.

I think good companies (which are incredibly rare) will figure out how to make the behaviors that get people bonuses and/or promoted coincide with the ones that are good for the company long-term. Sadly, it doesn't seem to happen that way too frequently.