Posting from my phone, real quickly all, I'd like to point out the current devs have already earned a substantial amount of money...likely enough to live off for at least a few months/years/decades... They do not need the extra advantage, and it is up to them how much time they wish to allocate between the rest of their lives and Mastercoin considering the future reward. I do not support an ongoing salary for them until some sort of objectives are laid out for such a salary that cannot be better accomplished via bounties.
If you think that the size of the bounties was disproportionate to the amount of work the devs did, this would indicate that the size of the bounties was not carefully enough considered. I would only point out that whether you're right or not doesn't in-itself mean that salaries are either good or bad.
I do not think that the size of the bounties were disproportionate to the work they did. They definitely earned it and this sort of consequence only serves to increase developer incentive.
"I would only point out that whether you're right or not doesn't in-itself mean that salaries are either good or bad."
I can agree. I want what is best for Mastercoin as well guys. I just think bounties are more effective than salaries in the case of core dev with clear criteria.