The point of bug bounties isn't to attract the interest of people who are working to find bugs. It's to make sure that if someone is finding bugs for fun or stumbles over bugs by accident, it's worth their time to report the bugs.

  >>  top-tier reward of a t-shirt.

A t-shirt still seems entirely too small; closer to insulting than motivating.

Sure. I was talking about the general purpose of bug bounties, not the specific value.

An actual pentest would include (I'm assuming) all sorts of NDA's and legal contracts and stuff, all fine if you work in the industry but if you're a bored hobbyist like me, bug bounties are a fun way to try and make a few dollars.