>I've seen this reasoning used to keep developers out of requirements gathering, for example.
That can be fair reasoning if you already have difficult work to do and your customers are noisy, disorganized, or inexperienced with developing requirements (think NYC window-shopping for features on someone else's credit card).
On a serious note, I have seen more projects ending into dumpster because we listened to customer too well and didn't actually infer the meaning which lies between the lines.
Most managers I have encountered are just messenger pigeons. Sometimes I wonder how system still works!
That can be fair reasoning if you already have difficult work to do and your customers are noisy, disorganized, or inexperienced with developing requirements (think NYC window-shopping for features on someone else's credit card).