Here's a talk, about 20 minutes on the virtual texturing part and a lot about the GPU transcoding part: http://nvidia.fullviewmedia.com/gtc2010/0921-a1-2152.html
20-30k a year is way below industry standard if we're talking USD. http://gamedeveloper.texterity.com/gamedeveloper/fall2011cg#pg27 44k is the average for <3 years for an artist.
Trine is totally worth $5. I bought it for $20 on the psn and it's been worth that for sure. If you can get local multiplayer going, do it. It's tons of fun.
Wow, that's pretty incredible for only 20 bucks! I was thinking about buying a non-commercial copy of crazybump, but might have to check out shadermap instead.