Interesting article, Steve. Aaron, I like your insights as an architect as well. I work in a large IT department now, so every role is very specialized. I resent not having better insight into how all the pieces fit together, since in my previous job I had to wear multiple hats, including architect. Perhaps that spoiled me. We have an architect division with 6 people in it. I've talked to 2 of them and each has a degree in project management, something I don't have. What I don't understand is why walls have to exist between the various groups. IT is very separate from dev, and both of those are very separate from the architects. Perhaps its just the way things are in larger organizations - they want everyone "to stay in their place".