Thanks :)

I guess what I'm wishing for is better awareness of areas of strength and weakness when making such decisions.

I can think of people who should never have been promoted to, say, a strategic role or a team management role, but would have been excellent to be promoted to an expert individual contributor (i.e. 'fellow', or 'expert scientist') role.

The industry has those roles now, and I know people in them. They're not wide spread, but they do exist and I do work in games. This is something that has come as the industry has matured.