And where do the business analysts come from?
Perhaps more agreement exists than you realize. I have worked with many poor analysts and a couple great ones for a couple different companies. Unfortunately, they were treated the same by management teams in place. The poorer ones were not given or required to take additional training to better their skills. The great ones moved on as did many developers who grew tired of not being heard or chastized for taking more time than expected to produce. Even today, my current management has hired a "business analyst" who they adore but who has never written a formal requirement document. I receive Word documents with handwritten notes driven by existing screen displays. The analyst does not even want to consider the best practices documents that I send back for her approval, claims that developers are being difficult when we keep asking questions and does not care to listen to why certain things are needed. We no longer complain as we are told to get along. So eventually we will all get along to the next position.
When an employee's skills are not up to par, it is management's job to let them know and give them an opportunity to rectify the problem. Good management does not let bad requirements-gathering (or no requirements-gathering) occur.
