I'm with you on this. One of the huge advantages of having worn all of those hats is that you have pretty good experience of having seen how badly some interactions can go. I can look at a system design and point out problems that specialists miss. And on the other side of it, I'm a swiss army knife. Need someone to figure out how to get your web app talking to the crusty old COBOL app? I've got ideas on how to pull that off too...