>I also think the collaboration, pitching, review bits have been heavily design theater for awhile. I'm not saying it was the designer carrying on the charade, but the product team generally. Those steps all really happen only for the final implementation to be a frankensteined fraction of what was discussed.

Absolutely. A chance for middle management and C-levels to bikeshed inconsequential bullshit and feel like they're doing something.

>That end result might be bad (perhaps it would help to be more respectful of the designer's efforts), but it's the same either way.

Can't be that worse than the slow to load, 50MB for a page, flat design full of wasted space shit redesigned every year or so to follow the new stupid trends that we're getting for the past 15 years