Architects, developers and approaches to a problem

I like that one: "Architects are a lot slower in getting a solution, especially if the problem is simple!" from Michael Platt.
Probably we could add that "Architects are much likely to come up with complex and costly solutions, especially if the problem is simple!".

Michael Platts has a good post titled Architects and Developers. In there (and in the comments), you'll learn about ways to approach a problem such as divide and conquer, simulated annealing and the 80:20 rule.