Not just senior guys. I'll bet we have plenty of FOs with working spouses who would be at the 32% marginal rate if it wasn't for the profit sharing flowing to a qualified account. (Well, not this year of course.)

I would argue that this is an even more important benefit for those on FO pay. For CAs, the NEC and profit sharing (in a normal year) will max-out their qualified limits. For those of us who need to make employee contributions to max-out, it sure helps that the profit sharing is in the "employer contribution" bucket. As such, we can shield a proportionately higher amount of our W-2 income from the immediate tax burden.