I think you worked in my company!
I agree - a dedicated IT purchasing agent would be a great position in the IT organization. It'd make a good junior position. They get to learn the hardware side and how the organization runs. Initially, you'd have to have someone sanity check their decisions (System Architect... or System Admin depending on size of company)-- but I think they'd come up to speed quickly.
We too had the issues the above poster mentioned. It got so bad that a "shadow" IT department was formed by the engineering department. Ultimately, it wasn't until instructions were given to the accounting department that those individuals were not allowed to buy stuff that it finally quit.
Damage was done-- resource allocation was out of whack and burn rate continued to flame away.
Of course, by the time the company was getting it's "stuff" together in that area... the venture capital money was exhausted and the company became "dot gone", with nary a whisper.
