I think it's hard to make "chief architect" work out in the long term
I think it can work fine as long as the chief architect is acting as an architect. Problems arise when a chief architect tries to make engineering decisions about individual components. When you're dealing with a large project, having someone who knows what all the components are and how they interface with each other can be absolutely vital; but that person should be treating each component as a black box -- not just being uninvolved with the implementations, but being actively unaware of the implementations of the components, in order to ensure that he doesn't make the mistake of assuming that a particular implementation detail will remain available in the future.
I think it can work fine as long as the chief architect is acting as an architect. Problems arise when a chief architect tries to make engineering decisions about individual components. When you're dealing with a large project, having someone who knows what all the components are and how they interface with each other can be absolutely vital; but that person should be treating each component as a black box -- not just being uninvolved with the implementations, but being actively unaware of the implementations of the components, in order to ensure that he doesn't make the mistake of assuming that a particular implementation detail will remain available in the future.