Indeed, and this seems to be pervasive in UI design as a whole. Until not long ago, designers created palletes of styles and components to be used by programmers. Now they draw entire screens and deliver the drawings to the programmers. This puts too much decision power in the hands of a group that don't have a clear view of the requirements and development costs -- and I have serious doubts about their understanding of "user experience" as well. Like you said, it feels that their artistic conceptions trumps anything else
