I absolutely agree that's true in most cases. However, some of us do wear multiple hats as "Hybrid" DBAs. Where I work, I'm the System DBA, the Production DBA, the Lead Database Developer, and one of two database designers and I do a pretty good job at all 4, if I do say so myself. 😛

Shifting gears a bit, I think that hiring the right person as a DBA is actually easy compared to some other jobs. Usually you "just" need the proverbial guitar player when hiring a DBA. The most difficult type of person to find in our area is someone that's really good on the front end and even "just OK" on the database side. To carry the example forward, you need a guitar player that can also sing and actually hit the right notes. So many of the folks that we've interviewed for front end development positions can't even write a decent SELECT with a single join never mind doing something "complex" like a "joined UPDATE".