You nailed it at the bottom, "...although admittedly returns".

Unlike most unhealthy addictions, the artifacts of this one can be profoundly useful to a lot of people for a long time, and can be saved/replicated/distributed for essentially no cost, indefinitely.

The cost of producing such artifacts (aside from credits & time, personality change) may or may not be worth it long term.  LLM burnout may become a real disorder deserving of specific remedies.