I have never worked with a System Architect that was more qualified to design the system than the developers were. Inevitably, they design a system that looks good on paper, but is full of moving parts, anyone of which can fail. It reminds of that children's game, Mouse Trap. It seems like it's going to be really fun to start the ball rolling, but inevitable some part of the paths fails. The guy doesn't fall into the bathtub, the trap gets stuck at the top, etc. In system terms, that means someone's pager is going off at 2am.