"an engineer", Chief Architect, same difference, right?

Where I work, Chief Architects do not make decisions about killing products. That happens higher than them. Their responsibility is engineering the architecture of their product. So, yes, I think it's accurate to refer to a Chief Architect as "an engineer."

> "Chief Architects do not make decisions about killing products."

No, but if you were trying to convince people you weren't forcing them into Google+, but Google+ was presenting alternatives out of their sincere love for the people, you wouldn't use the person who made the decision now would you?

And who better to stand up and ask "how can we help" than one of the people who will later take to the Google Blog to say "look what we added to Google+ because you asked for it?"

An event's possibility is not evidence for its occurrence.