I agree that "large hierarchies" may be an overstatement, but it is worth remembering that Alexander does not concentrate total responsibility for the design of

I agree that "large hierarchies" may be an overstatement, but it is worth remembering that Alexander does not concentrate total responsibility for the design of a signle in the hands of a single architect, or even a firm of architects, but rather, involves a large number of "end-users"-- and then iterates this notion both upward (to city planning) and downward (to interior design of individual rooms), so while the "hierarchy" may be relatively flat, the problem of distributed responsiblity is a real one (and a relevant one for software).