Why should a top performer have to make that choice?

And by top performer, specifically in a consulting environment, I mean someone who can be billed to a client at $2000+ per day - for which the client gladly pays, because they derive more value than that from the services.

For that person - why would she ever have to make that kind of choice? That person will negotiate a full salary reasonable for that level of performance and expect all allowable travel expenses to be reimbursed in addition - preferably by per diem, if for no other reason than to not have to worry about any of these knucklehead details.

(And "top performer" has equivalent definitions in other settings. For example, if you have a financial auditor, who can "close the books" at a remote site in half the time as anyone else, that person would expect the same environment. And would get it somewhere.)