Design Pattern也就是搭積木而已，也許你搭得比別人好。

BA speaks business language. What does business care? business, of course. IT is just a tool, nevetheless a necessary tool, to business. BA starts with understanding business processes, improves bisuness processes if you can (that's where one can contribute the most), extract business requirements and document them, pass it to IT ...

It may depend on which industry you are in. If it's silicon valley，may make sense stay as top notch developer. It pays to be a good BA any other places.

Just my 2 cents.