>The reality is, you're basically going to get paid based upon what your employer has deemed everyone else in your position is earning, plus or minus some % based upon experience level, your reputation, and how badly the company needs the position filled. If you don't like that, time to go into management or sales.

Pretty much this. If you are not part of the profit generating side of the business, you will always be viewed as a cost overhead. Engineering is unfortunately a question of cost expenditure for businesses but even more so for smaller software companies who don't have monopoly.