In the orgs that I have worked in, there were very few developers who could actually handle coding complex features and applications. The people navigating the office politics are important, but let's not pretend they are actually capable of pulling off the work. They can understand that "system A interacts with system B" at a high conceptual level, but are not capable of digging down at the detailed level necessary to make it happen.
My current org is the opposite. Loads of Very Smart Developers all building supposedly brilliant stuff in isolation for their fiefdom without any regard for how it fits into the bigger picture.
