Thanks for your comment Daymond,
As you point out the role of a SAS Administrator is becoming more pivotal as the size, flexibility, and integration points with the broader IT ecosystem expand. More power typically means more complexity, and in most of the organizations we've worked with this falls somewhere in on the Business-IT spectrum, often skewed toward IT.

At sites where IT isn't actively involved in SAS Administration we helped SAS Analysts acting as SAS Administrators to "simplify and automate" tasks through custom scripts, specific to their site. Today there are also tools that can be used to simplify and automate repetitive tasks that fall to the SAS Administrator (have you looked at MetaCoda Plug-ins?). Tools such as this, and custom scripts, can help make SAS Analysts who don't have a dedicated SAS Administrator more self-supporting and independent. We have found that often IT departments are willing to participate by "lending" these scripting skills to create or manage such custom scripts.

Cheers!
Nick