You make some interesting points vis the role of the programmer v the
manager but trot out the old cliche's of the geeks social skills too
readily
Like most of the computer people I know I have a liberal arts degree,
do coding, design work, talk to clients etc etc. This is in the context
of a small business so there are no titles/org charts and the rest, but
mine is not an uncommon experience.
To start valourizing the designer is a throwback to the worst kind of
80's role playing and loss of confidence in actually doing anything
without a horde of consultants, marketroids and managers to overlook
every decision.
Look at the massive growth in open source projects (www.sourceforge.org
for instance). There we see Geeks/programmers designing, making and
generally roaring ahead of the over-managed, over-time and over-budget
traditional project where the key decisions are made by non-technical
types who have never 'got their fingers dirty' with actual work.
I don't actually believe in the 'digital artisan' school of thought but
it has got to be a better ideal to go for than a return to worshipping
the self-important and usually mediocre bores of design and
architecture!