I'm not incentivize to promote someone who is already good at their job and would likely underperform to a higher position outside their skillset. I do find it reasonable to raise the wage for competency at that level, just not more responsibility. Some people are more suited to be efficient at a certain position and rocking their boats might do more harm than good.

But promotion = more pay, and people want more pay / influence so they take up higher roles that don't really suit them and then move up the ladder until they hit a position that's challenging to move up. It's a principle and not an absolute law but it happens a lot and this has little to do with stopping to acquiring new skills. We all have that asshole executive in our workplace that does less and knows less but somehow got to where they're at just cause they managed to excel at visibility.

For my personal preference, my career's quality of life drags down the higher I go up the ladder because it requires more admin skills and more time invested on other people than actually doing my craft. Instead of spending more time with patients, I'll end up being on meetings more. The pay increases slightly but responsibilities too and if I had to quantify value for my time, I'm earning less for this move. Probably just those things peculiar to my profession.