Yep-had a buddy who was a "lifer and ultimate professional and team player" just ousted from a $170K/year corporate CA job only to be replaced by the much less experienced buddy of the new chief pilot in a very difficult location and job market. He and his family have been there for 20 years. He's now 55 and been looking for anything, anywhere for a year. It seems that he's now considered "too old and too expensive" and thus too great of a risk.
A seniority list cuts both ways as he passed on both DL and WN in the early 90s as instead he listened to friends who made the same arguments about being able to easily change jobs for the same pay with little down-side risk.