Business analyst with extended role (#1): recent arguments

Several professionals commented on a question I recently raised at the LinkedIn group of International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). The question was  . . .
"Is this a call for extinction of business analysts?"
What triggered this question was an Interview at CIO.com, where the author of a new usability/design book said "... we want you to replace business analysts with designers."

Commentors on my discussion generally thought that the author's statement simply reflected a lack of understanding of software engineering. One of them, Doug Goldberg, gave a rebuttal, which you should read at http://www.requirementsnetwork.com/blog/7205.

And what did I think? . . .

JUST THE OPPOSITE of what the author suggested -- Business Analysts should replace usability/design specialists to design high-level process-centric UI architecture for business applications.
My replacement recommendation is only for business applications and only for the architecture part of the UI.

Here's why . . .

No ... I'm sorry, I'm going to postpone my response to article #2 in the series. Having read article #1, it is important that you read the other articles in the series as well to get the correct picture of what I'm trying to share.