@wolf_garcia. I am simply reflecting my own experience of my interactions with other musicians over a period of over forty years.
Yes I did read your post - is your comment about musicians and money not a generalisation in itself?
As it happens I agree with you.
On your last point, it is not a question of "retaining hearing", but of retaining the capacity to listen discriminatively having suffered significant amounts of NIHL - which I agree that at least some people can do.
However, I've also listened to a good few recordings where it's pretty obviously that the engineer's ears were shot in the 2-4k range and their eq decisions reflected that.