My recollection is Peopleware lists as an anecdote a Coding War Games study (not alot of data is in the book) where they pit team against team in different work environments, the study is about 30 years old at this point and as far as I know, no one has bothered to either recreate or disprove it. It showed a clear winner in terms of work environments (which was written by one of the book authors so it agreed with the general sentiments of the book.)

Perhaps the environment is being (wrongly) blamed for what are ultimately culture and leadership issues? Seems likely, yes.

I worked for a while in a what you might consider a hybrid system: small rooms of around a dozen people. Usually you don’t have problems of noise or distractions, since there isn’t that much going on, but you can quickly ask people about your issues without even getting up.