This leads me to believe that the problem isn't necessarily finding some highly skilled people to accept below-market rates for mission-drive jobs. It's finding enough skilled people willing to accept the tradeoff.

Public schools haven't solved that problem. Healthcare hasn't seemed to solve that problem either. They're cautionary tales in that if you can't find enough people to accept the tradeoff, the remaining job openings are filled with significantly worse candidates because you pay below market rate.

People evaluate pay to quality of life at work ratio, not just pay (although it is most commonly referred to as pay to avoid writing or saying all of that out).

You cannot expect a person to come out of school at 30 to 35 years old with $300k+ of debt after working 80 hour weeks during their 20s and slaving away in residency and not expect a decent pay to quality of life at work ratio.

If you do not increase quality of life to make up for lower pay, you will end up with less driven or less capable people. Note that quality of life also includes security of income, which can reduce that type of stress.

With low pay, you’ll get true believers and people who are bad at their work.

With high pay, you’ll get true believers, people who are bad at their work, and people who are good at their work. You can fill more positions without taking the bad ones.

As for what this says about society, I think all it says is that money can be exchanged for goods and services. If I’m selling ~50% of my waking hours, you’d damn well better believe I’m going to try to get a good price for it.

Yes, to an extent.

Looking at the costs of housing, especially in a market like DC, the motivation isn't "making lots of money" per se, but rather "maybe I can actually make enough to afford the mortgage on an 800k crapshack" and the acknowledgment that gov roles aren't likely to cover that.