Thinking to another domain, we were in a "design winter" in the 90s, until Apple showed with the iPod that there was value there. Then for a while there were many companies creating "real world value" by giving designers authorship.

Now it feels to me we are in a design winter again: there are still a lot of designers on staff, but they are relegated to a "touch up" role... They have been moved ahead of implementation (which is good) but they are expected to "touch up" concepts generated by management in a matter of days. Very similar to when designers would get a few days to clean up a UI that was already implemented.

Sort of off topic, but just and example that widespread use and business value doesn't mean something can't fall back into a winter of sorts.