Sorry, I'm not super familiar with professional game dev, but I am familiar with professional web dev. The problems seem similar, as evidenced by the constant complaining here on HN about the state of the web.

Who formats or cleans up the assets and at least oversees that things are done according to a consistent spec, process, and guidelines? Is that not a game designer or someone under their leadership?

I think in all the cases I gave, what might be completely delegated to "engine design" really should be teamwork with game design and art direction too. This is what the top-level comment was talking about. Even when a game is "well made", they just adopted someone else's standards and that sucks all the soul out of it. This is a common problem in all creative work.

(adding this due to reply depth): Coordination is a big aspect of design and can often be the most impactful to the result.