Are we really that far behind? (AKA design has killed the branding star)

The other day I was listening to a pretty interesting call with Sarah Durham and Nancy Schwartz. Both of them are fairly well known in nonprofit marketing circles (not sure how much that is worth) and they were giving a talk on the power of brands for nonprofits and how brands are more than just a logo. While listening to them chat about it, i couldn't help but wonder one thing (well two things if you include my thoughts about how antiquated call in meetings are, I mean christ, is a webcast so hard to set up?) are nonprofits really so in the dark about their brands and how important it is to maintain? True, I'd never assert that every nonprofit leaders has some fancy business marketing degree and some rarefied understanding of "branding" but is the majority as in the dark as we'd like to believe?
I dunno, I'm a numbers guy and before I can make an assertion I like to do research, but even without research one can see why it's in people like Sarah and Nancy's interest (and frankly mine) to maintain the belief that people are in the dark, that's how we keep food in our bellies. The problem is that the big push towards branding has come and past (that was really the business zeitgiest of the late 80's and 90's), now we're in the age of design. There is the chance that everyone may understand the importance of branding already and has moved on. Every third book is now about design, the army is using design to figure out how to win wars, and apple has a permanent lock on all our dreams. Design is the new placebo, the panacea to cure every business problem, and nonprofits are still worrying about branding.
Do I think branding is important? yes. Do I think design thinking is important? yes. Will I think that the next big business concept (i.e. fad) will be important? yes. Do I think that these are new ideas that successful people haven't ever thought of before? No. Frank Perdue knew about the power of branding back in the 20's (or something like that), IDEO has been using design thinking forever and ever. Successful nonprofits have understood how important it is to stand for one thing (the mission), stay true to the mission in all communications and actions (the brand), and to think innovatively about delivering the mission (design thinking) since the dawn of time.
I'm not entirely sure of where I'm going with this but it seems like we are eternally trying to label and formulate (and capitalize) on processes in the hope of being able to sell success.
Are nonprofits as far behind the current curve as these marketers think or are they just pandering to the easiest prey because they haven't developed the skills needed to go after the nonprofits that have already mastered branding?