[dansingerman]

  > This smacks of elitism and it is what makes non-developer scoff at us. Developers are not gods, we're not even the smartest people.

I don't mean to imply that developers can do this because they are cleverer. Merely that developers have a mindset to understanding software systems that business people often lack.

  > The spec is the output of the conversation

As I've said in another comment I don't think there should be a spec (in the traditional sense at all). There should be a story, a conversation, and acceptance criteria (ideally defined in code)