The other problem is that too many "Designers" are willing to make things that look cool, but don't really think about what it would look like under actual use. I had a discussion with a designer who's own website was ridiculously good looking, as long as you didn't try to interact with it, the images where too large, the animations where redrawing those large images etc. When I brought this up, the designers response was that "those are technical problems, and not visual design so it isn't my issue to resolve".

I'll let that sit with you.

Designers today don't think it is their job to understand how the HTML will make a design, or how a product would work under less then ideal conditions. Too many people involved in design want to make gloriously beautiful graphic design (and they are far better at that then I ever was, or ever will be), however they lack the full picture in design.

As someone who spends tons of time with programmers understanding how they think and how things work together, then attempting to play designer by merging these often arbitrary seeming hard to quantify things that we call design to make interactive experiences that are (what i hope) beautiful. I feel more and more that I am an industrial designer of the web. That fuller picture of an industrial designers constraints in how they can build things based on what their manufacturing limitations are fits better with what we actually do as web designers.

both are too extreme. we forget that even when "design has a seat at the table" there's other roles sitting there and they all shape the product. even in a design-driven company, design is not everything.