I think that I perhaps had unrealistic expectations. I have a CS degree and think of things like for loops and basic manipulations of data, say the kind of thing that would happen in a .erb or whatever template file to be required for anyone doing front end work, but the only people able to do that weren't able/willing to do anything on the visual side that wasn't explicitly called out in a photoshop comp.

If you're on the frontend I expect you to act as a bridge from the server to the user and have some feet in both worlds. At least being able to understand controller code, etc, but with the JS-wow hotness of the day there seems to be a desire to put a hard line on both sides and only deal with comps that a designer has given and and API docs from the backend dev. I don't think this works in any midsized or smaller company.