What do you mean by "ground level expert"? In my experience the true expertise tends to hover a couple of levels above 'ground level' and get called in for the curly questions. The actual boots-on-the-ground-100%-of-the-time people are usually at a fairly basic level of competence (or rapidly get promoted) and do the simple 'grunt work'.
I occasionally run into the higher levels these days and let me tell you, most of them are whip smart.
