The managers who hired them were not complete idiots, mind you. They knew what they were getting but they are playing their own games: they need the bigger head-count, they want to hire their cousin to oversee these sub-par programmers, they want to be seen as professional when they inevitably have to ask for external consulting when their underlings crap the bed on a regular basis, etc.

But it's mostly power play, I found, almost on a sexual kink level. A lot of people in power out there will hire you if you are meek and can't stand up for yourself. Really weird.