While I agree that it takes good social and interpersonal skills to do support well (as well as empathy, communication etc.), I do think that programmers should

While I agree that it takes good social and interpersonal skills to do support well (as well as empathy, communication etc.), I do think that programmers shouldn't be totally isolated from the people actually using their software. Many times now, in my own experience, a screen that I thought was designed brilliantly tends to not work as well out in the wild. It is amazing how many visual cues people miss or misread. Sometimes you have to make things more than obvious, and unless you are hearing about it directly from the customer (or better still, watching them do it), then you cannot really understand the challenges they face. I guess it is the same as making architects live in the houses they design...