Perhaps, but only to an extent. I think it was Jobs who said that "you hire people to tell you what to do, not the other way around", or something to that effect. So one could argue that Ive's job was to give Apple a design identity, which he did. With his departure the question is, what happens to the identity...? Apple could literally lose 50- 0% of its value overnight if they came out with some funky, bad design that nobody likes. Design is that central to Apple's future. Apple isn't the only company that knows this either. Look at the Fiat 500, the Smart, the Mini, Nike, etc. One bad move and many people would start looking elsewhere. I really don't envy designers. They can make or break a company.

Thanks for reading and for the well-argumented comment. It's really enjoyable having dialogues like these. 🙂