There's a difference between competent and senior level.  And then another difference between either of those and incompetent.

I'm a consultant, I work on projects for lot of different companies and government agencies.  So I see a lot of different environments.  I'm often part of a project that either my company is not the prime on, or (especially in government where they have to meet requirements for minority owned, woman owned, small business, etc.) we were required to sub out parts.  Or rely on the company or agency to provide resources which are not a part of the project.

So I can't always pick my personnel, and I often have to deal with what I get.  I know the rate of anyone where my company is the prime, and I know for a fact that I've had many DBAs on staff who were paid under $100k.  And they were all competent, even if not senior level.

I've never had a DBA, either contractor (my company or another), customer company, or government, who would have taken 70 days to notice that the new virtual environment was slowing down SQL transactions.  Or even one who, when just asked to look into an issue, because often times all I know on my end is that some piece of NMS software is reporting SQL errors, who could not find and solve the problem within a few hours.  Ever.