Yep, ok -— I was wondering if I’d erred in that way. I getchya. On the other hand, engineering is creative work and you can’t force or totally control the creative process. The “trick” I think mostly, when it comes to engineers, is to be clear about what you want them to do. I’ve said sometimes that you have to be careful what you tell an engineer you want - there’s a risk he might deliver it.
As for a sense that engineers aren’t supporting the overall process sufficiently - I harken back to my experiences in the ancient simple sequential project form. By the time software is delivered to test, engineers are either laid off (if they were hired for the project) or reassigned. Testers could complain about the lack of documentation and knowledge transfer, and involvement in their QA processes, but the engineers weren’t around to hear it.