I think it is unreasonable to expect that a person will be a good programmer just because (a) they are a scientist and (b) their current project can be assisted by computers.

Is it not sensible, perhaps, to have a dedicated group of programmers (with various specialities) available as a central resource to assist the scientists with their modelling? (I am imagining a central pool whose budget would be spread over several areas.)

I personally love working on toy projects related to science. Maybe we hackers with time for that kind of thing should volunteer in some way to assist with the technical aspects of research that is directed by a scientist? I'm not sure I'd even care about getting a credit on a research paper so long as I could post pretty pictures and graphs on my blog...