Ask HN: How do you deal with incompetent Tech Architects

I was employed in a firm where the Architect would design the whole system and ask the developers to just do the so-called "grunt work" of writing code. The problem was that there were many issues with the code architecture. He also reprimanded us if we suggested using a newer tech (Spring mvc instead of Struts). When I couldn't talk him through the problem, I decided to have a meeting with my manager. To my dismay, I was fired the following month.

Did you ever have to face this? What would have been an ideal (and safe) plan of action?