I've worked remotely for years before COVID and these meetups are always hyper productive.
I'm also burned out and need to sleep for a week straight afterwards.
Just because people get motivated seeing each other once in a while doesn't mean that's sustainable if they were in an office.
To me, working remotely was less effective in the beginning, it uncovered undiagnosed ADHD and after dealing with that I'm doing far better than I ever did in an office.
Office work is fine if you prefer it, working from home requires a lifestyle and an office space to make it work, something not everyone can manage.
But that doesn't make it worse at all, and as others have said, it requires different management skills, if you haven't picked them up, you probably won't see the benefits from your perspective because you're not letting your team work properly.