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In the lower level certifications, developer technology is all over the place.

At the highest level (Microsoft Certified Architect), the Solutions track appears to be a good fit for high level application designers and architects.

MCA requires an MCM as a prerequisite.

However, none of the MCM tracks are targeted towards development. Obviously to be a good architect you need to have knowledge of other technologies, servers, sql, messaging etc. But those seem like things that should be part of the course load, and not the sole focus.

Are the lower tiers really as high as you can go for application focused professionals?

For most developers, the SQL MCM seems to be the best fit.

Are the MCM and MCA really targeted ad more administrators and not developers?

A: 

I have a great answer for you. Programming is considered a narrow skill, mostly outsourced to India. To be a well-paid programmer you have to ascend into a Systems Developer, that cannot only code but also has the experience to say which language to code in, can make technical architectural choices and so forth. Microsoft certifies their developers targeting their own products, such as C#. This means you can only learn some narrow techniques, and it's very hard to create a high-level developer certification using solely their products.

Simeon
While I agree with you on the surface, this doesn't jive with the rest of the tracks MS offers for MCM and MCA. Those are also narrowly targeted at Microsoft products, yet there are certifications for them, but none for the developer tracks.
Jason Coyne