I wonder whether some of that divergence is because it’s largely a feature of interactive fiction which still doesn’t have its genre conventions well-established.
By which I mean that in linear fiction you can establish that you will need a roulette wheel stopper in act 2, and then in act 1 you can show Barney putting together something with a magnet and a foot switch. Behind the scenes, we can assume that the team has worked out the plan and decided that’s what they’ll need, but that’s hardly ever shown.
And some players like going that degree of planning, and I think the tech preparation to some extent can be a spin-off of that. But others don’t. And when a plan has been thrashed out, it can be satisfying for it to come off, but again not to all players.
I don’t have an answer for this but I think this may be why that kind of broadly technical role may be unpopular. Another reason: a fighter gets to do things that culturally we find exciting. A social manipulator gets to have conversations with perhaps a bit of dice rolling (for all we always say “it’s the character’s charisma, not the player’s” it’s more fun if the player speaks in character). The technician doesn’t do either of those things but is interacting largely with rules entities.