> The sales team that "inserts themselves between" your problem and the solution

That's just an incredibly jaded way to look at things. The solution is developed by people who specialize in developing solutions. The communication of the existence of the solution to people who need it is handled by people who specialize in communication and customer outreach, i.e. sales.

You may think that without a sales team the solution would be cheaper; the reality is that without a sales team the solution would either not exist or be substantially less refined as _someone_ has to handle the customer interactions, and if that's the dev than that's taking them away from working on the product.