Of the three parent listed, I think two (Meijer and Hejlsberg) were both DevDiv. Cutler was OS before moving to Xbox of all things, and I think he's at Azure now? It's certainly not only MSR hiring these guys.
I should've broken up the comment a bit as it looks like I meant all MS Research as you said. I meant to say something along the lines of (1) MS Research is doing a lot of great stuff with some examples and (2) Butler Lampson should've been on the parent's list of top talent at Microsoft. Appreciate you telling me about the mistake, though. :)
