Also, I personally wouldn't call what we do "extreme agility" (whatever that means). "Flexible", "minimal process", "ad hoc" are all more accurate (and less gut wrenching) ways of describing it if you ask me.
I always find it insulting when someone assumes that developers are motivated only by technical challenges, and if there's no carrot and stick, they tend to focus on the most hardcore, yet unimportant, stuff.
Developers are not stupid. On the contrary, they are extremely smart and if they act stupid, usually it means that the management is poor. We don't live in 70s anymore. A developer does not imply unshaved MIT hacker.
My bet is that the source of this assumption is lack of business objectives' sharing. The engineering department is separated from clients and hardly anyone, except the project managers, know what are the client's problems, or goals of the project.
