The blame can't be placed 100% on engineering.A proxy for direct contact with sales prospects
is having a detailed finger on the pulse of customer service -
if not shouldering that directly.
Nothing informs engineering about what crap they've built
like listening to people bitch about it, and having to fix it.
There are a lot of people pushing with their own goals that sometimes cause engineering to deliver an inferior product.
A good example of this is almost every Smith and Wesson "Performance Center" gun. You can see a lot of shortcuts that are taken to keep them maybe $50 cheaper, when they are already raping people at $1300. I would bet these shortcuts were not taken because engineering pushed for it.
One example: Cutting the 929 cylinder with the same tool used for a .357. 100% a corporate move.