If you want to liken Curtis to Keroac, that's a good comparison. Both make shallow things that appeal to you until your tastes have matured somewhat. I'm not going to say AA is Ulysses, meanwhile, but all of AA's competitors' sites were designed by commitee, too, and it worked great for them.
Apple's strategy is actually originally inspired by the Beatles, where five people all contributed and the resulting songs sounded nothing like any one of those people in particular. I'm certain if Steve Jobs designed everything on his own, Apple would be different than it is with a dozen people all working on one thing. And Jonathan Ive says this directly in interviews. He refuses credit for his work, because in his mind it's the entire team working together that's responsible for his final work.
Sure, Jobs isn't designing every little piece - it's more that he serves as the dictator. Because he's very unforgiving in design reviews, I think his subordinates start to think like him.
Dictator usually have advisors, but in history, the dictators who are swayed by lots of advisors with strongly competing interests tend not to do too well.