There are other realities to contend with, like how it looks bad to have a six month job on a resume, or leases that are expensive to break, or how moving when your lease ends to somewhere better to commute to a job you've lost confidence in, or waiting for a vesting cliff and promised raise, or moving far enough away that your friends might as well be in another state...
Not to mention if you have a family or partner.
In the long commute case, much of that was true. I tried to stick it through hard times after they moved offices to be significantly further away and burned out. It happens.
Life isn't always so simple and you can't always optimize your life around your job.
On that note, I don't know if there's any research to it, but I feel like commute is an exponentially increasing nuisance. To illustrate: Moving from a 15 minutes commute to a 20 minutes commute will bring me less irritation than moving from a 55 minutes -> 60 minutes commute.
When I worked from home I lived in a difficult climate which became overly pleasant. The worst snow storm didn't bother me in the slightest, if I didn't feel like going outside I just didn't. When bearing the cold became optional, it was a pleasant luxury going outside instead of a chore.
The human interaction you are talking about is real, but so is losing a large chunk of your life getting to work.