I think that's the problem. It's very tempting to abstract gender out of the picture by talking about the vacuity of sales staff in general, but gender is involved. There is an established narrative of women as pretty but useless, and the women in question are being fit handily into that role.

Look at it this way: if you talk to enough sales guys who don't know anything, you'll write off sales guys as being useless. But if you talk to enough booth babes who don't know anything, you'll write off attractive women as being useless.

Booth babes aren't defined, like sales people are, by their goals or their training, but simply by being pretty women. That's the only function they serve, and consequently the level that they're judged at. That's the danger here, that it's not just a matter of salespeople getting a bad rep, but establishing an entire gender as useful only as eye candy at conferences.

That's really quite sad when you think of it. Maybe my experience is some crazy outlier, but the sales people I've worked with both in shipping and in tech have been some of the smartest people I've known. Maybe these companies are sending the bottom of the barrel to conferences... I'm taking a note not to do that with my company.

I've found sales engineers to be among the smartest people in most (enterprise) companies -- definitely smarter than the dedicated salespeople and absolutely smarter than the product engineers. They're basically the equivalent of the "rainmakers" in professional services; i.e. the people you bring in to convince the client that you're brilliant, but who don't actually work on your account once you're signed.

Conference booths are to collect leads, in general. Not to 'close'. I'd expect the bottom of the barrel there - they only need to get your name/swipe your card, and then you get turned over to the top notch sales people.

That's confusing. If the sales people are the smartest at the company, how can the product be any good? Maybe you are talking to the wrong companies ;)