A blog I posted yesterday on how the Occupy Wall Street protest is rapidly gaining steam and spreading to other U.S. cities, has drawn some strong reactions among our readers.

While demonstrators are still unclear about what exactly they are protesting against, their grievances seem to be largely aimed at big corporations and wanting accountability from Wall Street for the financial crisis. In particular, recurrent themes are unemployment - which still stands at 9.1% -- and the fact that bank executives received huge bonuses after receiving taxpayer bailouts.

Our readers have some strong opinions on the matter of executive compensation.

Mike M, a former securities regulator, says there are many reasons for unsound private and public executive pay policies. "But one which must be highlighted is the continuing use of affiliated and non-affiliated outside consultants for reports and recommendations on executive pay and other compensation," he says.

Often, but not always, these consultants pick the top three of "comparable" executives in publicly held companies and use them as the "executive compensation setting standard," he adds. As a result, they then argue that that is the policy recommended by them to the board of directors of the publicly held company. The lack of opposition to this type of procedure is troublesome, our reader continues. "This leaves aside the further issue of what ARE improper affiliations between these outside consultants and the company, its board and its managers."

Another WS&T reader agrees that ties between board members and a company's CEO make it virtually impossible for institutional investors to effectively change the way pay packages are decided.

"The directors are usually buddies of the CEO. [...] The company nominates - renominates board members," he says. As a result, "the pay thing remains the result o f the 'old boys club,' he adds.

While many agree that the executive compensation issue needs to be addressed, few industry observers believe the Occupy Wall Street protest will bring about the necessary change.

Many observers classify the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest as nothing more than a form of street theater where out-of-work actors are just having fun hanging out.

"While it is without a doubt that pay without merit is endemic in the corporate world, it is private capital that suffers here. Shareholders will have to live with this inefficient allocation of capital," Freemarket says.

Still, "Pretending that these neo-bolshevik, rent-a-mob, useful idiots who are protesting this practice have a valid point is naive at best [...]."

Another reader argues that a constituency of people who work within media, medicine, insurance, education, finance and politics might be best placed to propose ideas that will help address the legitimate grievances of main street. "But should we hold our breath?," the reader says.

One thing is for sure: as Wall Street banks continue to protest that they don't have the manpower to comply with Dodd-Frank regulations and that technology upgrades needed to comply are too expensive, they continue to pay their top managers millions of dollars.

The growing street protests are unlikely to lead to much direct change in executive compensation, but most observers do consider them a delayed reaction to the financial crisis.

Perhaps the best hope this grassroots movement has is to stir everyone from the general apathy that has prevented any effective change in the way things were done before the last financial crisis.

Maybe the government, regulators who have been stalling on Dodd-Frank, and the banks themselves, will finally stop dragging their feet.