Although I agree with your strategy of hiring, it sounds like what you are saying is "hiring non architect-quality people is an antipattern". Okay, well obvious

Although I agree with your strategy of hiring, it sounds like what you are saying is "hiring non architect-quality people is an antipattern". Okay, well obviously bad developers make a bad team. Even on a good team, there are more and less experienced developers. I don't see what's wrong with calling the most experienced ones "architects" if that's what they want to be called, as long as it's clear that it isn't an excuse for the other developers to ignore higher level goals and design.