In one case, sales & admin felt “uneasy” not having a real office where to invite customers and partners. I honestly don’t see how a crappy shared-space office is better than no office, but I’m not in sales... Another case, ISO-8000something about controlling infrastructure from which you access customer sites; which is kinda stupid in the third millennium, but there you go.

The problem is that, as soon as you have expensive real estate paid for, you get all sort of pressure about actually using it, so new hires are placed there 100% etc etc, until “grandfathered remotes” are effectively considered legacy.