I agree with this to an extent, but a controlled burst of ego can sometimes signal to the rest of the business that they're deeply off-track: "I/my team are better than spending time realising this ridiculous requirement/deadline/anti-feature, and we're just not going to do it. You need to re-think this".
I don't recommend doing it too often (no-one wants a reputation for being precious or difficult), but used correctly it can be powerful.
I don't think this works in Silicon Valley. I'm a recent transplant but I've found that people here are very passive aggressive and it's always a mistake to be direct with people. Now, in NYC I never had a problem after talking to someone about a disagreement (obviously in private). But, it's just not affective in SF.
I don't recommend doing it too often (no-one wants a reputation for being precious or difficult), but used correctly it can be powerful.