I didn't get the impression from the article that Friday was "break time". I got the feeling that it was "meeting time" and "argument time", which is a different thing altogether...it's formalizing the constant interruptions that most work environments have throughout the day into one half day at the end of each week. So, you save up your discussions for Friday. It just happens that having meetings and discussions with people you like OK is a pretty low stress way to spend an afternoon, so it makes the last day of the week an easy-going sort of thing.

But, I agree that a lot of corporate environments could not pull this off. There is a point in every companies life where the culture becomes too divided. Not everyone likes fantasy football, Mario Kart, Rock Band, Medieval themed restaurants, or volleyball, and any formal attempt to get everyone involved in any one of those things is destined to failure and poor morale.

A pretty large percentage of people, below a certain age, can agree on free beer, so the "picking up the tab" policy is a somewhat safer choice, but probably a less productive one. Do you really want people discussing business strategery after four or five cocktails over the sounds of the football game on one side and the jukebox kicking out Justin Timberlake on the other?