Assuming there is a need "to lure top devs" (of which I'm not convinced), I'll add a few comments.
Wouldn't you be willing to do it part time for a single delegate? You could come up with some project you think needs to be done and then turn it into a delegate proposal. At first it would also need to be something you're also doing out of passion for crypto, and not just for payment (Like I imagine the situation was with PTS-DPOS). But over time as bitshares grows it could become a massive job and even potentially a massive business.
Part-time work evades the question how much a developer is worth, it does not answer the question.
I know the "delegate proposal" method is often cited, but it has some severe flaws, IMO:
1. You (not you personally, but you the DAC as a potential employer) cannot expect a skilled developer to make a massive investment into registering a delegate with a mere hope of being voted in and perhaps making a profit at some point in the future. I find the suggestion of the OP very reasonable, to create a delegate beforehand and decide afterwards whom and for what to pay using the delegate's earnings.
2. The method turns the original intent "lure top devs" into a much broader scope. A developer's job is generally to come up with a technical solution to a given problem. That's what developers are good at. But you are adding "come up with a project", "create and run a delegate" and "do self-marketing and lobbying to collect votes" into the mix. It will be very hard to find someone who excels at all of these. Again, the OP's suggestion makes this much simpler.
The answer in my opinion is simply not to hire expensive Germans if it's a situation where a Greek, Spanish, Chinese, Russian or American developer will do the same for less. I understand your point of view and I also would understand if I'm an American asking for $5k a month and someone in China would be comfortable on $2.5k a month. As a voter I will favor hiring developers who will do it for less money or who live in places of high unemployment.
That's of course perfectly understandable and reasonable. However, in reality this answer is not quite so simple, because the situation is not that you have a choice between equally skilled Germans, Americans, Russians, Greek or Chinese where the only difference is how much money they're asking. You only have very few skilled people available, and your choice is to pay market rates - or you don't get them.
Developers work for startups for 5k a month or sometimes even volunteer because the money to pay them doesn't exist yet. These developers work for the dream, the vision, and in many cases for shares which aren't worth very much when they started the job. These developers are rewarded when the share price rises and they become rich because the success of the business is what makes them rich.
I'm old enough to have witnessed the dotcom bubble around y2k. I have seen developers work their asses off for a few shares in a "new economy" startup, and 12 months later the company was broke and their health ruined. I'm not going to make that mistake - I'm willing to take a risk, but only a risk that I can manage. You'll most likely hear the same from other experienced developers. If you want them to "work for the dream" you need younger (and less experienced) developers.
If you pay developers 10k a month they will have no incentive to care about the business and you'll have developers who might not care as much about the vision as they care about making a quick buck. If developers understand how valuable BTS are they'd voluntarily sacrifice for lower pay knowing that it's better for their BTS holdings.
I always care very much about the business I'm working for. Most importantly because I want to continue working for them, and when the assignment ends some day I want to have a good reference in my portfolio to show to my next customer.
But even when I'm invested in a company that also pays me for my work, I make a very clear distinction between my work position and my shareholder position. My work is valuable independent from the number of shares I'm holding, and mixing payment for my work with the possible increase in the value of my shares is not acceptable. Obviously, every other shareholder profits from my work, too, without providing equivalent work themselves.
To be fair there is nothing stopping an American or anyone else from moving to China to live for a while as they work as a delegate. There are ways to get around these problems if the person truly wants to work for the blockchain but if they see it as just another job then perhaps they won't want to work in China or places even cheaper.
Erm. The thread title is about "luring top devs" into working for BitShares. This implies that developers are currently not knocking down your doors, or begging on their knees to be allowed to work for the DAC. Your implication that a "top dev" could be willing to move to china so he can afford to work for substandard payment is...unrealistic.
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