Great response. For the "retired" who stayed on, what sort of impact did their newfound attitudes have on things? Did they play a part in any of the major new products or improvements that came later?
Generally the impact I've observed was folks getting more stuff done. I attributed that to them not worrying about pissing someone off if they stepped on their toes, but it may have been that they just had only one thing to focus on.
To be balanced I've also seen them leave, basically to put to the powers that be a set of facts or demands that need to be true, only to have those same powers tell them it wasn't going to happen. Then they left. I try to pay a lot of attention to those sorts of events because depending on whose reasoning I find more credible it can inform my own thoughts about staying or leaving.
