Employee Stock Options?

Evil Butters asks: "ComputerWorld has an interesting article regarding the decline of Employee Stock Options. Long gone are the days when companies would pass out stock options like toilet paper (as you were lucky if it was worth as much). Since most of us are probably in IT related fields, is anyone seeing any turn-around in compensation packages -- especially for IT folk? Everywhere I look, companies are still cutting back and finding reasons why compensation does not need to be increased (except for CEO's of course) no matter what your performance is like. But according to the article, 54% of the top S&P 250 companies are (at least) using restricted stock as performance perks, etc."