I don't buy the opening argument; essentially "rich people are smart". We've endlessly witnessed stupid corporate acts. To name a few that have nothing to do with open offices: Conglomerate building (if your name ain't Warren Buffett you almost certainly destroyed value), corporate raiders (destruction of value to line the raider's pockets), the 1999 bubble (let's throw billions of dollars for 'eyeballs'), off-shoring, American automakers (do I have to get into the details here), stack ranking, faulty risk assessment (nearly every NYC banking/investment firm). Waterfall (the stupid kind, not the way it was meant to be done, which is quite good for projects involving airplanes and such). Agile (as it is practiced, the manifesto is nice for certain kinds of projects). Windows 8, or MS' ignoring the internet for a long time. I could type all day.

Companies do stupid things all. the. time. They fly in the face of all available evidence. People are put in charge that shouldn't be in charge. They are driven by ego, or other measures that lead to sub-optimal decisions. Sometimes they are really good, but just make mistakes. I'm a programmer, and my compiler tells me I make 100 mistakes a day; I don't fault upper management for the same. They just don't have that immediate feedback loop that we do. Of course they will make expensive mistakes.

Heck we see it in this thread. Evidence shows that productivity is lowered in open office environment, yet we read claims that it is improved.