>often times off-shore developers are used to strictly hierarchical, authoritative organizational structures, and therefore they don't take initiative or "think outside the box,"
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>Has to be the way of the future: increasingly programmers work in managed teams, to a spec produced by somebody else, using a development tool selected by management but controlled by vendors who Fox and promote choices that advantage themselves.
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>;-) Yeah, I'm being a cynic.

I don't know. Having managed a few outsourced projects and heard war stories from others, I am not convinced outsourcing actually saves money in the long run. To be efficient, a person writing a program (or a report or a subroutine etc.) should understand how the thing fits into the big picture, what is the reason for the program to begin with, as well as not be timid about suggesting other techniques or technologies than the ones specified. IMO, a lot of the problems associated with outsourcing have to do with cultural and organizational issues much more than technical prowess (or the lack of it.)