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I don't know an awful lot about this stuff, but tug leads me to believe that you are somehow violating the trust of the headhunter by accepting a counteroffer? if that's so, that should impact your decision.

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LOL, no. Take the recruiter completely out of the equation, he doesn't matter and is only a facilitator in the process. The candidate owes the recruiter nothing both literally and figuratively.

When I speak with someone for the first time I try to mine out why they're looking to make a move (sometimes it's not obvious or they'll give you a red herring reason first). Once I've identified what I think is the reason, I then ask if they've discussed it with their employer to see if they can work out their differences. I ask this not only to be comfortable that they're committed to moving for the right position, but also if they pull some counteroffer crap down the line I can point back to this exchange in an effort to hold them accountable for their actions.

Just because a candidate doesn't owe a recruiter anything doesn't give them license to waste the recruiter's time.

Also, people who accept counteroffers are dead to me 90+% of the time, the very rare circumstances where I've reengaged I've made it clear that it's not going to happen again. But mostly I think people who accept them are dumb and that's reason enough to avoid them in the future.