Astonishingly bad play. Just astonishing

I've been working from two basic assumptions for over a year now.
1) The higher up in stakes you go, the better the players
2) Players generally are getting better.

I've just busted from a tournament where I've seen some of the most bone-headedly stupid plays imagineable. I've seen a player call off 300 chips on the flop and turn leaving himself 80 only to fold on the river. I've seen a player call a preflop-raise, a flop and river bet on a board of AJxxx with 4 hearts holding 22(no heart). I've seen people call all-ins for about the pot with 10-high (and a gutshot straight draw!).

I was adding notes to the players and they all consisted of criticisms of their play

"Calling station *** don't bluff ***"
"raised 4x UTG+1 wT5s"

Amazing. And the buy-in? $55!!

If I'd have hit some hands I'd be tournament leader by now. I was chuffed that my table didn't break for ages as the shorties kept hitting cards and doubling up.

I ended up having my AA losing to a rivered straight, but I didn't actually play it that well. I called a fair number of chips on the river with 4-cards to the straight down. The trouble was the player (and several others) had been so bad they could have held almost anything.

It really was like playing in a $1 tourny - only with fewer pre-flop all-ins, but still an equivalently stupid number of post-flop calls with weak draws or made hands.

Astonishing.