You are absolutely correct. The ones that get the most worth and respect are actually the middlemen who are good communicators between the "geeky" types and the zero knowledge "corporate" types. Whether the middlemen deserve it or not, I don't know but such are the things in the real world.

In an IT company, for instance, you will always find the project managers and even supervisors getting all the glory and respect whereas the programmers and architects are shunned on the side.