Actually FíîFíîsç¦tè¦sàâ last time I was in a top agency and among my colleagues there were consistent producers who made 10-20k per month. By 1 estimate, 2-3 colleagues of mine was making 30k-50k per month in recurrent income (all their production figures can be tracked by all), rather than what you call one off payments from single premium investments. However like in all industries, there will always be the top 1%-2% who are earning figures like that.

MDRT doesn't mean a lot to people in the know. It's simply an issue of hitting certain prerequisites in order to be an MDRT, not necessarily just income level.