There kind of used to be acceptability for this - i.e. architects designing the class topology and sometimes even method names, and handing it down. From what

There kind of used to be acceptability for this - i.e. architects designing the class topology and sometimes even method names, and handing it down. From what I've witnessed, this started to fall out of favor around the early 2000's, if not before. The problem (at least as I imagine it) was that this is inefficient when the designs need to change and one person gets a really soft easy job and the others get a lot of detectable grunt work. Now we have the opposite problem - the "architect" title is kind of despised by people who know what it means, and everybody designs - but often those designs are at odds with each other, and usually too entwined with ego to come to compromises that make different sections of the code work well together. There is a complex balance between finding the right level of top-down design and order and using all the assets of the team to make sure things are good and stable, and in particular, maintainable to folks who are going to be new to the code.