{

Harry "DevHawk" Pierson comments (emphasis mine):

My opinion, since you asked Nick, is that EA (Enterprise Architecture) fails to deliver value because it tries to control the uncontrollable. Trying to gain efficiency thru establishing standards and eliminating overlap via reuse are pipe dreams, though literally millions of $$$ have been poured into those sink-holes. There are a few areas where centrally funded infrastructure projects can solve big problems that individual projects can't effectively tackle on their own. EA should focus their time there, they can actually make a difference. Otherwise, they should stay out of project's way.

I concur and there's follow up if you read on in his blog, but this was quite succinct.

A funny little aside: I was called for a marketing survey and agreed to it after I found the reward was a $50 coupon for Amazon. The woman caller asked my title and I said "Software Architect" (my given title, though I really fit the mould of a lead developer and plan to have it changed).  She paused on "architect" and asked: "But do you write code?"  I answered in the affirmative and had to do so to variants of the question (e.g. "But do you implement specifications in code? But do you really know C#?") about 4 or 5 times.  Moral of the story, don't use architect in your title, use developer. Unless you're Don Box.

}