I'm interested to know what you think is missing here.

It couldn't possibly be that engineers in this field just got through a huge downturn and companies know there are lots of unemployed/underemployed engineers with decades of experience they can pay just as much as me, right?

Nah, it's easier to blame the guy (who clocked 160 hours last paycheck) for not working hard enough to improve his lot.

I got good grades in school, have worked hard in my job, and have given as much as I can to the companies I have worked for. I left my last job because they were demanding even more work from me than this one. I made a great deal more money (twice as much, roughly) but I had no life at all, and I was treated as subhuman. There's a lot of things I'll put up with but not that.