While it's true few people can snap their fingers to accomplish these goals, you certainly can over a period of 5-10 years by working on them consciously.

If your employer expects constant overtime from you, start looking. When you have an offer from a sane place in hand, quit your current job. On the way out, tell them why. It might help the others who are still there.

In a world that complains about a shortage of programmers, you have more leverage than you may think.

There is risk involved in doing that. I've seen a lot of people come back to their former employer after trying out a new place and not having it work out. If you give a real accounting of your opinions in an exit interview, that escape hatch from the new gig would probably close.

The amount of leverage you have is heavily dependent on the perception of your bosses. If your bosses know how rare a good programmer is and truly do value you, then you shouldn't have these problems anyway, and I'm sure they'd rectify them ASAP if you brought them up. Many of us don't work for such enlightened people, though.

Everything worth doing involves some risk.

No, tell them that constant overtime is a problem now, and that it needs to be rectified soon.

If the problem isn't rectified, keep informing your employer that you want to work normal and sane work hours. Escalate to your boss's boss, HR, ect.

You're free to look for another job, but do that because you want another job, not because there's a short-term problem in your current job.

If you have a reasonable basis for assuming that the problem will in fact be short term, sure. If the management is insane, and isn't going to recover sanity soon, then you're likely to just get fired as a complainer. That leaves you no income while you're looking for a job, which can be uncomfortable.

You can certainly chose to move closer to work, if commute time is important to you. You'll probably trade off something else against it.

Similarly, you can trade off hours expectations.

And yes, you, and everyone have the option of unilaterally normalizing your hours. You may not like the results (or you may love them) but you absolutely have the option.

Similarly, you - yes you - have the option of (re) opening negotiations with your employer. One possible outcome is always that you part ways, of course.

Take advantage of the one proven means of normalizing the negotiation power between you and your employer: join a union, organize your shop, and take advantage of collective bargaining rights. This is obviously easier said than done, but at least it's not based on magical thinking.

Unionizing is definitely an option... but it's worth noting that the balance of power between programmers and employers isn't the same as factory workers. In particular the means of production are so cheap anyone can start a software company.

Or become a contractor. That's what I'm doing.