Gary Gilbert raised an interesting point this afternoon talking about design in the context of uPortal. He pointed out that sometimes the problem is that the designers don't have the ability themselves to implement their design improvements and don't get enough time and effort and attention from the developers.
Well, what if we gave the designers some developers? Not just discussions, not just a chance to convince the developers to do things. No. Real actual resources - developers who make reality the vision of the designer.