I think there's an important distinction here. It may be more productive for you but not necessarily for the team. You grabbing another employee may increase your productivity but subvert theirs. Anecdotally, my personal productivity goes way up when I work remote because I don't have all the "drive-by" questions that erode my focused work time. Whether or not that makes the team more or less productive may be a factor team dynamics and contributions.
So it cuts both ways.
Then there's this somewhat weird obsession with people supposedly being unable to perform their job without 8 hours of uninterrupted solo time. The work day isn't supposed to just be each person working solo trying to accomplish as much as possible. Interacting with the team is being productive. Extremes in either direction are likely not productive.
I think I may disagree about the "somewhat weird obsession" with uninterrupted work. (I'm assuming your '8 hours' was hyperbole). The research seems pretty clear that interruptions are more detrimental to highly focused work. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect certain blocks of uninterrupted time if the type of work requires it, but that shouldn't be conflated to someone expected to simply be left alone all day.
I don’t think that’s the case at all. One could say a similar thing in that it enables the worst employees who can drag down so-called top performers. But I don’t like any of these framings.
I personally prefer working in the office. I’m more productive, focused, and able to check in with someone or go grab them and show them an issue I’m having. I’m able to attend talks, have discussions, etc., which get me going on certain ideas. I am a person that doesn’t work well in ambiguity. I like to have a plan discussed and agreed upon. I find this is much harder remotely, for reasons both known and unknown.
Very few deep conversations happen over Slack. I miss some of the deep conversations I used to have with fellow coworkers on slower days. You are also very limited to the type of work you can do. Basically any job requiring hardware interaction requires you to be in office, either by natural constraints or policies.
But I am also like the commenter above. It will be really hard to give up remote work. The convenience of not having to commute, dress a certain way, have my own food in my own kitchen, etc. are all massive perks. At some point, I may choose to go back into the office, but I’m going to do the remote thing for a while. Especially now that gas is insane.