You make a great point about the trade-off of practicality to accuracy, and I totally agree with your prescription about moving up a general level, which is what I would have said too beyond 140 characters. It’s not about the title, it’s about conveying the objective of addressing user needs.

I love how you describe shifting from one service to the next, even within the scope of a given project. So true even when not intentional, but this really suggests how a contractor should shape and sell themselves. Good stuff.

I like “user experience professional” and I’ve even seen “user experience architect” which is a workable, if not a bit too self-invented sounding, but I don’t like “user experience designer” because I’m seeing it associated more and more with people who do not have such real backgrounds in UCD, IA, content strategy, etc., but rather have have learned to use Flex, Adobe Air, Silverlight and the like and suddenly think creating UI’s with this technology is what UX design is about. Basically, I’m seeing a lot of people calling themselves UX Designers that shouldn’t be at all, any form.

Reminds me of a relevant article by Karel Redenburg at IBM, What’s Messing Up Our UIs? http://karelvredenburg.com/2009/03/whos-messing-up-our-uis.html