Plenty of us plan to do just that. And the pay grade is there. You have to be willing to go where the demand is, and CS is a really hard field to keep a job in - by that I mean, if you get comfortable in one job for three years, and don't keep up with the field, you won't find another job, the field will have passed you.
I would say maybe 1 in 5 CS students studying for a PhD wants primarily to teach. There is a great deal of CS research going on right now. A lot is in the universities, so a lot of students who want to research will end up becoming faculty. If you want to have more input into your research, you become a faculty member somewhere, teach two classes a semester and, as long as you get funding, do what you want.
Working in industry, you give up some of that freedom but you make some serious money. You can outsource programming to India, but they haven't managed to come close to us in innovation.
well, I don't know what you consider serious money.
if I had my engineering career to do over again - I'd go into hedge funds, that's where I'd be. that's serious money. is it rewarding, no. but when you find yourself at middle age facing layoffs and offshoring and H1Bs and loss of retirement benefits, and you are too old to be hired anyplace else - that's not very rewarding either.