I will be sure to pass that fact along to all the well-paid über-geeks I know (who will be quite surprised at their misapprehension).

But there is no necessary relationship between "the world's highest-paid", and your notion of "well paying". You could be simply wrong, or your measure of "well paying" could exceed what the actual "highest-paid programmers" cited get.

Dan Luu did a good essay about programmer compensation a few years back.