If I design obviously evil choices, I want it to have hard, objective gain. Black and white decisions that are "balanced" in RPGs always massively frustrate me, because there's no reason to go black unless you're playing as Dick Dastardly. Even with the money offered though, I find it very difficult to believe many players went with that option.
On the other hand,
players often frame their choices in ways that are completely bizarre to me, so maybe I'm completely wrong about that and most people really did sell the peacock up the river.