[nicoburns]

Agreed. I had the pleasure to work with talented specialist UX designers early in my careers, and their designs were really fantastic. They also worked really closely with the developers, both to understand the medium they were designing for and as a first line of feedback before things got to real users/clients.

Unfortunately some of the designers I've worked with more recently were primarily graphic designers without a UX background, and actually became an impediment to good design because they were given authority over it despite not really know what they were doing.

I think it's probably an unfortunate consequence of there being more demand for UX designers then there are good UX designers, and simultaneously being a lack of jobs available for graphic designers. And a lot of hiring companies not really understanding what makes a good UX designer.