What use is earning all that extra cash if you're working yourself to death with no way to enjoy the money? I work in a large international org and despite the people in the US earning a lot more than their EU counterparts, they also pretty much universally seem more miserable, are working all sorts of odd hours, have basically no holidays (the amount of times I've gotten a "Vacation again!?" questions from people in the US is insane to me), have to stress more about doctors visits and stuff like that.
I've had a lot of opportunities to be earning a lot more than I do now by moving to the US, but seeing the state of the US I'm more than happy with my 32 hour contract and 5 weeks of vacations that I get to actually enjoy.
It's a reasonable question, and one that I've debated at length with friends, but which cannot be addressed satisfactorily in a brief exchange of internet comments :)
During the golden years of big tech in the states, when employee retention was king and it was pretty much impossible to fire someone who wasn't completely useless, I think it was a pretty good deal. Although East Coast work culture has always been pretty intense as you describe, a lot of West Coast people I know had good balance between work and everything else. Some people chose to work very hard and chase promotions, and others chose to go home early and spend their time with family or doing hobbies, and both ways were considered acceptable. The better companies offered 5 weeks of vacation, and people would go completely offline during that time, although some people would have to be cajoled by their managers to actually take the time off.
Recently it feels like things in the US have gotten much more intense and stressful, although the pay is as high as ever it does feel less worth it. People compete with their coworkers not just for promotion but for survival. There are still pockets where you can have both high pay and some sense of job security, but they are much scarcer than before.
I've heard of an American senior executive who was assigned to an Australian office and at first thought everyone was lazy but then after actually working there for a while he was sad to have to go back.