Architecture Control committees

The Board of Directors are elected by the association owners and the members of the Architecture Control committee are not elected to the committee but volunteer, so why are the members of the Architecture Control committee given the power of deciding what architecture requests get done? That is the job for the Board of Directors who are the elected officials of the association.

The Board typically appoints the ACC members. If needed, the Board can remove ACC members.
Because for many HOAs, this is a covenant.

Since the Board can appoint and remove ACC members, competent HOA attorneys say that the board has the right to the final say.

I wonder if you understand what a covenant is.

To me the purpose of an ACC is to take some of the burden of running the HOA off the Board.

Excellent question.

Some covenants grants such power to the committee, some do not.

Personally, by having two separate entities, it provides the owner an avenue to appeal the committees decision to the board. I think this is a good thing.

Reality is, there are often not enough volunteers to serve on the board, much less committees. Therefore, the board is grateful for anyone volunteering. Otherwise the Board would be the one's doing that work on top of their own. As treasurer, I spent 20 hours a month volunteering. As a Board member, add another 5 to 10. When I served on our ARC, that required 5-10 hours a month as well.

It takes time to serve and such time is taken away from family and friends.

In a perfect world, yes. Sometimes you just get a lazy board and their purpose for an ACC is to ensure the directors can get away with doing even less than they normally would.

Personally, I think they are more important.
If the volunteers weren't there to be on the committee, the board would have to do the work or the work simply doesn't get done.

Regarding what authority a committee has, that would be in the governing docs or the written resolution made by the board when the committee was formed.