Having hired a UX designer that had never coded, it was a very frustrating experience.

I enjoyed the high-touch with customers approach that they brought to the table but when it actually came to implementation it was as if I brought an astrologer to an astronomy meeting -- a lot of the same words were said but neither knew what the other was talking about.

There was just no sense of proportion on the UX side.

I am not saying a UX designer needs to code in the course of doing their UX work, but I do think they need to know how and have had some experience in it. Otherwise, the distance between saying something and doing it is too great.