Often great packages need some political leverage to pull through. I'm sure many good managers would like to offer their subordinates top salaries but company policies/budgets do not allow it. Only when a top performer is about to leave the equation changes from "increasing costs" to "limiting costs" - it's very expensive to recruit and retrain replacements for top talent. Yes, it sucks. But I totally understand the dynamics driving this.

The unfortunate conclusion is that to maximize earnings employees should test their market rate in the job market periodically.