As has been written by up_and_up as point #4 (and I think it's the most imporant task of them all), one key indicator of a truly good engineer is to analyze a c

As has been written by up_and_up as point #4 (and I think it's the most imporant task of them all), one key indicator of a truly good engineer is to analyze a complex problem into digestable/achievable chunks. And you want to have enough top/1%/A-engineers to make sure that this work is done properly. That's where in my oppinion the best talent should be put to use. And from filling in the blanks in good design, hopefully the 50%/B/average engineers will learn from and become good architects themselves! And, frankly, this is not restricted to engineering, but also what you'd want to have students learn from their advisors or craftspeople from their masters. Additionaly it also works the other way round: Given a company with only average people working on projects, I'd expect them to grow and improve at a much, much reduced rate , or maybe even have their work deteriorate because there's no one pointing out bad coding practices, or other engineering methods, creeping in.