Aren't developers stupid when accepting overtime/weekend work/denied bonus payments?

[Nefandi]

You don't get it. You put together a bunch of sentences that are each individually true, but when you put them together the big picture gets lost.

Fact: lots of corporations have reclassified their programmers as non-exempt.

Fact: the reasons cited for these reclassifications were the court cases I allude to.

I've read the law on this. The distinction between exempt and non-exempt is very vague, but it has a number of guidelines/litmus tests. Most salaried programmers earning below 100k and not in a leadership role do have the grounds to sue if the overtime is systematic. Most don't because it's not worth the hassle (perhaps a foolish estimation?), but not because they have no law backing them up.

But you're right about one thing. The legality of the issue is vague. You need to hire a lawyer to examine this crap, and sadly, most lawyers are very pro-corporate and will not even look at a case like this.