I agree with you in that at the company with the culture issue, working from home was ultimately the only way I could be productive and not hate my job. I did it for a while before ultimately leaving.

However it is definitely not a solution to an actual culture problem. Ideally, working from home should be a choice because it suits the individual’s needs, not a way to separate from dysfunction.

I think culture problems are quite common. Plenty of people report them, on the other hand I haven’t run into them all that often, and there are many people here who report reasonable cultures.