I think it's difficult to care about $ and status while also caring about rationality and altruism, don't you? It's one thing to say that "X is the optimal instrumental value for Y," and it's another to pursue X on a full-time basis while still being passionate enough about Y to trust yourself to trade X for Y when the time comes. I find that my "terminal values" realign alarmingly quickly when I start pursuing different goals -- 6 to 9 months is about as long as I can spend on a side-project before I start unconsciously thinking of the side-project as one of my actual goals. How about you?