In my experience, programmers' competences aren't so broad that we can take the decisions you presented. Repeatable measures are easier when there is a repeatable conventions to deliver work.
IOW, either I'm supervised by someone that should know relative merits, or I'm judged by the final results. In either case, I'm not paid more, because I believe that the real value is more on errors I prevent than in lines I write.
In my experience, programmers' competences aren't so broad that we can take the decisions you presented.
Are you suggesting that in your experience, programmers never use unusual techniques, never push back on requirements, and never engage in refactoring or infrastructure construction?
Repeatable measures are easier when there is a repeatable conventions to deliver work.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Sure it's easier when there are repeated conventions. But are there actually repeated conventions? You could create an environment with repeated conventions by firing Fred, Ed, and Jed. Now you can measure everything with ease. Are you better off?
In my current job my boss has much control over my work, he is happy with my performance, he knows that I'm way over average, but (please, believe me on this) he's powerless to improve my situation.
In other jobs I've been much more autonomous, performed much better than now, but there was nobody that noticed it, because there wasn't anyone to compare to, bosses didn't really understand what I was doing (just that it worked) and specially because they didn't know what could have gone wrong and I made right.
Time ago I was in a different environment. I was in an intermediate situation. My autonomy was limited, but not so much. Bosses were very experienced and knew how difficult my work was. I got raises and a promotion. Then I was better off, and I'd say so was the company..
Does this imply that programmer "productivity" cannot be judged in a vacuum, no matter how rigorously we attempt to specify the task?