I think the same phenomenon manifests with corporate managers. It's all well and good if a middle manager has the teeth and claws to hold his own in the corporate jungle. She/he shouldn't necessarily use such armament in other contexts, such as when dealing with the craft-oriented techies in her own group.
Some buddhists would say something like, "One is shaped by their livelihood."
If you want to be a successful salesman, you need to sell to salespeople. Most companies are driven by sales. When they want to drive more sales, the answer is to hire more salesmen. Every year, even in bad years, the sales organization will have money to spend on new initiatives. This means the VPs and SVPs of Sales have the power of the purse.
When sales guys want to sell a back end solution, it is easier to sell to not the CIO but the COO or SVP of Sales. Show them how it can return ROI by improving customer satisfaction or highlight the weak points in their sales figures. Thusly the salespeople that end up doing well are the ones that can better relate to the sales types who are now in management.
Edit: Now that I think about it, this can probably also be applied to other types that have to interact with upper management like investment bankers. But that is a whole other rant.
So it's not too surprising that the people who remain in commission-based sales positions are overwhelmingly those who care more bout the meta-game of amassing rewards than in the business' overall well being or that of its customers.
The only thing I can possibly think of that might become a source of motivation for them is helping clients finding the right solution.
BTW the TED talk is http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
This method removes greed as a motivation, promotes selling helpfulness to the customer (rather than ripping them off), and stabilizes the pay of the sales guy who just had a really tough quarter but still has to pay the bills.
Sure, a well placed bonus here and there for outstanding team-work, a huge sale or contract, etc, would be a good motivator. But, I think the commission-ship has long since sailed.
Joel has been talking about this for the longest time, http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000070.html
If I were to guess, I would say some of the top folks that want to make more money compared to what Red-gate is paying now and don't want to trade in the risk-reward factor will probably leave.
Incidentally, one of the commenters had an effect on me quite opposite to his intention. The commenter noted how much he liked restaurants where the tip is included. This is completely foreign to my experience. My experience is that tipped service is consistently among the best service.
In fact, because of the times you'll probably be ok but I'd be careful about losing your sales team when things get better.
Unless you're paying them 6 figures then I'd really suggest getting them on some kind of commission.
Commission is a huge part of the sales process and always has been.
People are fundamentally motivated by greed. Especially sales. At the very least they should have a choice.
