Upvote for this part, meh on the rest

Keep in mind this opinion is from a coder (me)--coders are creative types by nature, I find. Most coders I know aren't just people who sit down and write code like Milton, or something--slide rule in hand. Most I've met in my career are also artists and musicians. If you're thinking of people who write code as just code monkeys or maybe offshore resources who get paid 1/3 of the going rate to write boilerplate code, then maybe that line of thinking works. At the end of the day, good coders are generally very creative folks.

Of course.

Not saying that there aren't coders who are also great rules designers at all, but if you want to produce great games efficiently without code lagging months behind schedule, separation of duties makes sense. It's like producing a hot indie video game vs. the next AAA giant release that has to ship on a schedule, and has to be "good".

Not sure you're going to get the best coders on good projects if all you need from them is code. I would guess Lyman stays on as a coder at Stern not because he gets to write code; but because he gets to implement his rules. What I mean by this is that by separating rules writing from coding you potentially end up with people just looking for a paycheck type of coders, and a few guys with big ideas.

When a coder/rule writer has a good idea, it can keep him/her motivated to see the code through. Of course, we see that this can bog down for someone like Lyman (who likely has several projects in the air at the same time).