On many things I agree. The lack of inane office banter does increase productivity. But it might not be the break room but it can be rewarding having a chat with a colleague if you are at a creative dead-end.

When we have an isolated design process where creative decisions are never questioned we end up with the post-Jobs Ive era of Apple where some ideas (like the butterfly keyboard and removal of ports) were never questioned because they came from someone designing in isolation. (Although in this case it was probably seniority and cult status that meant the lack of questioning)

Since Ive left Apple they've been hitting it out of the park on design and pro-consumer moves. You let your design team work from home and this sort of thing would also happen.