I think you're wrong. As much as I despise rankings, Scripps was ranked number 1 among chemistry departments my year (my degree is in chemistry). I didn't have to do any TAing. Among my classmates and the class after me (whom I hung out with the most, classes of 20 students tend to do that and at scripps we're really close), there is: A professor at Scripps, A professor at Berkeley, A professor at Stanford, A professor at UCSD. I am in contact with them and will possibly launch a collaboration with the one in Stanford. Finally, at 24k I barely broke even on my expenses. I'm sure I could have survived on 18k, but I'd have more grey hairs.

And "The vast majority of younger faculty I've worked with". Sounds like selection bias. Talk to the postdocs and see how long they've been around.