[bitbuilder]

While I have no experience with an organization that is officially flat, I have plenty of experience with large dev teams with indifferent managers that effectively created a flat organization.

In my experience, it's rare that the most "commanding" dev is also one of the more talented devs. If anything, my experience is the opposite: the stronger personalities are great examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect, while the best devs have more passive personalities (or just don't care enough to try to commandeer leadership of the team).

It's not like "kissing the most ass" is limited to kissing the ass of upper management. The same types that are exceptional at kissing the ass of management can also be great at playing Lord of the Flies with development teams (forming alliances, turning devs against eachother). It makes for a terrible work environment.

I much prefer strong hierarchical management, assuming management is competent enough to promote those with both development expertise and the people skills necessary for management (consensus building, mentorship, clarity of purpose, motivating people, etc).

[Terr_]

Maybe it's worth distinguishing between developers who are opinionated about how something should be built because they care about the process/results, versus those who are self-promoting with whatever cause-du-jour is convenient.