Riiiight? I'm sure if that were to be the rewarding system here, other developers will be falling over themselves to come up with something new.

It probably will not be tens of thousands of bitcoins, but PowerGlove is already receiving payment for the work he does, which for a long time he did for free/fun:
While most of the patches I've posted to date were done on a free-time/voluntary basis, theymos and I did recently come to an arrangement, and I am now paid for the work I do on Bitcointalk.
- Jay -