I just love a thread where so many of the folks talk with authority when the are totally clueless as to the reality of the situation.
Comparing pinball to modern console game development is a ridiculous comparison. As some have pointed out, the size of markets are as different as night and day as are the budgets involved for development, where video game development budgets are often more than a 100X greater (I believe the latest Grand Theft Auto had a development budget well over $250 million). And for the major console games, the development time, even with the huge teams is longer than pinball development.
In many cases, not all, the programmer is doing so much more than code, as they are often creating the rules and setting the vision for the game, working with the other creative members of the team (art, animation, sound, mechanical/toy, etc.), to bring that vision to life in what is hopefully a great game experience for the player (and one that sells well and takes in coins on location). Obviously the designer and the layout they created is the foundation on which all of this is built and if that is crap, hard to create a great game, and of course, a great playfield design can be undermined by bad rules/code/etc.
As we have seen the early interest in a new game can be impacted not just by who the designer is, but also who is programming it, which shows the importance of the programmers role in creating a great machine.
And if you want to get a true sense of the importance of sound, lights, art, animation to the playing experience, go play a whitewood that has no music, sound effects, callouts, animations or light shows.