I'm reminded of this quote.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” --Upton Sinclair

No, money creates a conflict of interest. Bounties that devs can choose to accept, as well as donations is fine, but once they get a salary their loyalty is no longer to the users, it is to the salary. What if there's a critical bug that could threaten the value of XMR? what if the salary he's being paid depends on him putting down his fellow devs to get to the top? What if the other devs get jealous/envious and try to make the paid devs lives difficult?

No, a salary is a horrible idea. They'll no longer be doing it because they enjoy working on an innovative, collaborative, vibrant technology, they'll be doing it because they look forward to the pay checque at the end of the month and they'll get fucking vicious if necessary to protect it.

Bounties, forum funding and donations are good, salaries, bad.