I've worked with 1-person shops and with large, well known firms, and this notion that creative directors are calling the shots on projects doesn't square with my experience. The person who's performance you care about is the one giving you comps and taking your feedback on them; in firms with "directors", that person is almost never the director.
Provided that the project got proper oversight and herding by the creative director, it does not really matter, IMO, who writes the HTML and diddles the Photoshop buttons.