I completely agree — although I find my incentive to think this way comes from resource constraints (in the startup world). My impression is that in a later stage company, product managers bridge this so designers can focus on execution, knowing that their priorities are in order with the business needs. The key is that designers know enough about business to interface with those needs and be motivated by them (same way we need to know enough about code to interface with engineers to get it done). Best part of design is its multi-faceted-ness :)