Yes, in fact the company I work for provides, bar none, the best experience for video conferencing and collaborative online whiteboarding I've ever used. We go to great lengths to reduce latency and make the discussion feel as natural as possible.
Its still, at least to me, markedly less productive, than an in-person meeting.
Like I said, conferences, summits, etc. These are done for a reason. Not to mention that there's some research I've seen that suggests that places like Bell were so successful because they cultivated happenstance interactions between smart people that don't happen in distributed environments.
I think that conferences, etc, build up on the human element and are important, but not for the reasons you mention.
My current belief is that a 95% remote team works, you do need in-person opportunities, the more the better, but at least once in a project can be enough.
Its still, at least to me, markedly less productive, than an in-person meeting.
Like I said, conferences, summits, etc. These are done for a reason. Not to mention that there's some research I've seen that suggests that places like Bell were so successful because they cultivated happenstance interactions between smart people that don't happen in distributed environments.