The item I will agree with you on is that Production DBA's can not exist in a vacuum. Prior to my taking over the production DBA group, the existing DBA's had a hostile attitude toward many of the developers which were really there customers.

Given a good working relationship with the development division, your role becomes one more of consultant and less one of hated administrator. Of course you will still get to play bad guy from time to time, but don't start off thinking that it is your role to save humanity!

Another item of note that in my environment development dba's have to work on specific work tasks due to billing rules. They can not float around and work on whatever is in trouble.

Thus development DBAs here lead a rather focused existence based on whatever project(s) they are supporting. Many of the development DBAs have great experience but they are not NT Admins, just DBOs and limited SAs.

My basic message is to manage your relationships with developers and their management. Given a good relationship your advice is more likely to be asked for and listened to!