The point seems missed to me. Like any serious collaborative undertaking (movies, buildings, complex systems development, scientific collaborations, etc), successful software needs a unique person to carry the vision of what is the expected result and do what needs to be done to achieve this result, including organizing the works. Call him or her a director, an architect, a chief scientist, a hero… He/she will always be needed.

It’s interesting to note that these people can also become the doom of the project. This is why there is no single easy recipe for picking the right person.