Excellent question. The parochial mentality that workers must be colocated is clearly part of the problem.

However, using remote workers is not the only solution. As a remote worker, I can tell you that I have to expend more effort communicating than I would if I was co-lo'd. Granted, I'm an extrovert so I don't mind terribly.

For more on this, see: http://evan.tiggerpalace.com/articles/2010/12/10/rule-0-choo...