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It would have sounded that way to me, too, a decade or so ago. I've learned a lot since then about the internal politics of organizations, and these days for most purposes I'm quite happy to leave them in the hands of a skilled specialist when available.

From that very same article:

"There are moments when it is useful to have the engineers (or any kind of staff with specific skills) talk to upper management and talk to outside clients. But those discussions need to go through a specific process, they can not be allowed to happen randomly."

She was right about “macho engineers” in my opinion. They can be extremely disruptive for both a team and an org.