I happen to work for a company that was started by programmers. In the early days, they had to spend a lot of time doing sales and support, so they were dealing with customers every day. But as companies grow, people who specialize in product management and sales get hired, and programmers no longer have much contact with customers.
But since your article discusses the relationship between programmers and a "product department", I'm assuming that the company has grown to a point where programmers have relatively little day to day contact with customers, and thus they shouldn't be the ones calling the shots when it comes to figuring out what the customers need.
Hence, my suggestion that the product department be used to inform the programmers so they make wise feature decisions. It is not appropriate, however, for product to be in a management position over engineering.
Also, how do you account for the many successful software companies that are started by just programmers, with no product direction?