I give him points for being aware of the normal pitfalls of designated architects. But even in a good Agile shop I think it's incredibly dangerous to give somebody an "architect" title.

If architecture is one person's job, it means it's suddenly not anybody else's job. Software architecture is a pervasive concern, so everybody should be thinking about it. I think that's much more likely if anybody can notice an architectural issue and is encouraged to take the lead on sorting things out.