There a couple of jurisdictions that have outlawed stock options as compensation. I would tend to support this. Its not even a social equity argument. Its actually a shareholder's interest argument.
The value in stock options is the ability to buy shares at a set price, where that set price is below the market price. This comes with two serious issues for shareholders.
1) The incentive to the CEO to goose short-term earnings to inflate the stock price to exercise said options to greater personal gain, but at the expense of long-term company performance.
2) The exercise of options automatically carries a dilutive effect that lowers everyone else's share value.
Its a poorly thought out form of compensation.