This is true for a team of mostly senior/experienced developers. Learning is unfortunately not something instantaneous, so basically “architect as a guide” advise is probably as useful as guide pre-schoolers in differential topology while playing in sandbox. And unfortunately sand castles pre-schoolers can easily architect can’t provide good enough solutions for differential topology problems. [update: I did not intend to belittle anyone, just to highlight the fact that in some, maybe not typical or majority of cases a lot of experience is needed to do quality work, even with core algorithms let alone architecture. Years of learning from simple to gradually more complex are required.]

What makes it even worse, hardest architectural decisions need to be done in the beginning. And that coincides with the time developers as architects do have the least knowledge. Experience helps there, but transferring experience is not possible unless you have all the time in the world: Software teams usually do not.

While the points made above are relevant, I think delegating architectural decisions is up to most experienced members of the team. They certainly are the best to judge when and what can be delegated with optimal results for both other “developer-architects” and the solution they are building.

Situations are different, so some assumptions need to be mentioned when Architectus Reloadus can evolve into Architectus Oryzus.