When I used the term Tier 1, I did so in terms of their “perceived” status, their typical types of projects and scope, and while not stating it directly their “minimum price to do anything for you”. It had nothing to do with me implying “These are the best designers in the US”
For one, many of those companies aren’t doing work with internal ID departments, they’re being hired by marketing teams or other large organizations. Reason being your exact point, when designers need someone to design, they know there are killer consultants out there who know the problem, know their internal process, and charge 1/20th the amount. Some of those large companies literally won’t sign an invoice for less than 6 digits.
Either way, if you throw out a bunch of names on a table, those are the type of consultancies that come up often, and they’ve done a very good job of sculpting their business in a different way then the typical “I design gadgets” product design house.
It goes back to my last sentence - it’s about the client being happy. If the client gives you a crap product brief to reinvent their company “Hey, I work for cooper tire, what brand expansion can we do?” and they come back and say “For $500k we’ll tell you that you should start making BBQ’s because it resonates with your middle American focus groups” and that guy is thrilled, then they’ve done a good job. Even if that means the resulting project nearly bankrupts the company. Just take a look at all these posts we’ve had about the graphic rebranding failures on Tropicana and other big brands. The corporation loses, the company walks away with a ton of money. It obviously doesn’t tarnish their reputation enough to put them out of business.