Livre d'Or

I think you did have a particularly bad combination of circumstances, yes. But at the same time, the supervisor moving to a place where the student is unhappy and cut off from their support is a reasonably likely thing to happen. Having difficult families is a reasonably likely thing to happen. Having personal issues that make these things especially hard to cope with is a reasonably likely thing to happen. Etc.

Regarding job satisfaction, you have a very good and very important point that it is not a requirement that one's career should be the central focus of one's life plans. Are you saying that the only two options for having the kind of worthwhile programming job you ended up with are either getting a PhD or being willing to put in inhuman hours, and given the choice three years of PhD misery followed by a job that lets you have a life was the better option?