If you regard it as an "extended paid vacation" there's a good chance it's going to impact your earnings for years if not decades.

It may be an opportunity to work on your side projects, get some training/education, reevaluate your options and direction, etc. but it's not a vacation. It's "unemployed" and just having that gap in your resume/job applications can really start to hurt you - in part because other people aren't treating it as a vacation. If you're a cog but nobody's chosen to slot YOU in place of someone else "easily replaceable," what's wrong with you? "What did previous interviewers see that I'm missing? Meh, he's a cog, why risk it, 'NEXT!'" Just ask some of the long-term unemployed about how hard it is to even get a call back.

Even if you avoid that, one of the questions you're going to get is "What have you been doing since you were at XYZ?" and you'd best have an answer.

Q: What have you been doing since you were at XYZ?

A: I took a year off.

I don't think it's really that bad. People do that. It's not like you're going to be looking for a job on Mars, when you come back you'll call your friends (who by then have found jobs or started new companies) and through them you will find plenty of opportunity.

Those places where you're a cog - you probably don't want to work there anyways.

We need to rewire these workplaces. If they want cogs don't work there and let them know why.

For most people, it's extremely risky to treat a severance package as a vacation. You should typically start looking for your next job immediately and with considerable haste and seriousness.

A gap of unemployment on your resume, for any reason, is going to hurt 90% of job seekers.