A while ago I took on a freelance web programming project with a company I'm already familiar with. My boss (also the company owner) typically pairs me with one of his PM employees for each project I work on, but there was one case that made the exception.
As a freelancer I could work potentially from anywhere with only the obligation to show up on-site for the weekly client meeting, but I usually work in the office because I can concentrate better. When I told my boss that in most cases, I'd rather report to the PM because it's easier and more accessible, that's when he informed me that the client is the PM!
I can see the advantage of having no middleman for the project, but in this case the client/PM was unavailable during most of the week. I would rather wish there was a PM that I can just talk to every day face-to-face to have a better assessment of our short term progress. Plus, the company's own PMs are much more web-literate than the client so they would do a better job at communicating problems and suggestions.
So are there any cases where doubling up the client as a PM would ever be a good idea? If any of you ever faced this situation as someone working for a PM/client, how did you handle it?