I live in Eastern Europe. I have worked at the local branch of several multinational companies. When I applied to a job, I solved the interview problems and then I was offered a slightly more than average salary the same way as my colleauges. None of the interview questions were deep enough to mirror how I think about really hard problems. The only way I can really measure myself is to work on problems like the Netflix prize, build my hobbyprojects (and I participated in math competitions when I was a child), etc.., but these are not related to my day-job. I earn $36000 a year currently.
I once started a topic on HN where I have written this: please give me a very hard 'test' task (which can be solved in one or two days, but very tricky), and if I can solve it I would be interested in remote work for more than $36000 a year. (Which is slightly above market in Hungary) But no one answered.
About your 3 points: I agree that having these in one person is a good combination. However people are rarely exceptional in all 3 points. Some guys are exceptional algorithmizers, others have really good intuition for enginering, creating an amazing design (for code), yet others have exceptional memory so that they can dive into huge bloated shitty code, and yet others deal well with monotony (when you have to do unchallanging tasks, or deal with other people's shitty code). Some people are fast like hell, others can grow beautiful thoughts if you give them days to think about a problem. But I agree that a bit of all of this is needed mostly. Also being strong in one territory you can emulate other strengths. If the tasks are not on your limit, you can emulate fastness with smartness, and emulate smartness with being fast. But when the problems are hard enough that you are at your 'limit', this emulation no longer works.
About your 3 points: I agree that having these in one person is a good combination. However people are rarely exceptional in all 3 points. Some guys are exceptional algorithmizers, others have really good intuition for enginering, creating an amazing design (for code), yet others have exceptional memory so that they can dive into huge bloated shitty code, and yet others deal well with monotony (when you have to do unchallanging tasks, or deal with other people's shitty code). Some people are fast like hell, others can grow beautiful thoughts if you give them days to think about a problem. But I agree that a bit of all of this is needed mostly. Also being strong in one territory you can emulate other strengths. If the tasks are not on your limit, you can emulate fastness with smartness, and emulate smartness with being fast. But when the problems are hard enough that you are at your 'limit', this emulation no longer works.