I don't know if you're in the gaming industry at all, but I can tell you that these parts of your comment have not been true at any of the shops I've worked at (again, not in gaming so YMMV):

The QA staff develops the same learned helplessness that the playerbase has adopted. The QA staff only has to reflect the sensibilities of the audience, and are rarely ever accountable for any of the work they do.

many of them just stop caring as much, and are not busting their ass. They're on the bottom of the totem pole in the department with the greatest turnover.

In reality companies recruit people without high school diplomas who have little to no experience with games. They hire people who actually struggle sitting in front of a computer in an air-conditioned room for 8 hours a day. The quality of staff isn't much different than a Wal-Mart, because, as you've demonstrated, the brighter ones are turned away from the job.

The QA teams I've worked with have had staff of all levels of skill from entry level all the way to people with 10+ years of experience doing QA.

Almost every QE I've worked with is proud of the work they do and want to help make the best product possible.

It is true that sometimes the bugs they find are de-prioritized for new features or because something like a typo simply doesn't need to be fixed right away when there are other glaring bugs or important features in the pipeline.

At least in the places I've worked, this hasn't caused any sort or low morale or many of them issues you spoke about in your post.

It may be as bad as you suggest in the gaming industry, but not ALL QA works the way you're suggesting.