Some of the negatives you've listed come from a "non-remote" culture at the company (2, 3, 5, 7, 8), which can be fixed, with desire (by the company) and effort

Some of the negatives you've listed come from a "non-remote" culture at the company (2, 3, 5, 7, 8), which can be fixed, with desire (by the company) and effort. For example, with meetings, you can have a rule like if anyone is attending remotely, everyone attends "remotely" (with a headset and webcam from their desk). If you do use a meeting room, good equipment is essential -- HD audio on a device with good microphones and echo-cancellation, and a camera mounted on the wall. I've come to the conclusion video is very important for most meetings, especially with more than a couple people, as everyone tends to stay muted to keep background noise down. You can see people nodding in agreement or looking confused, being totally disengaged, looking like they have something to say, smiling at jokes, etc. Without it, it discourages things that help build a healthy team like joking around -- if you crack a joke and it's followed by awkward silence, it's not a good feeling. My team (distributed across timezones, with over half remote from a home office) does a daily standup every day, using video, and it definitely helps to bring the team together. Team chat, used properly (hint: Skype is not the right tool, and chat is not a substitute for email or a bug tracker), can also help. Often when a bigger discussion breaks out and people are available (engaged in chat), we'll just start a video chat. It's a lot like the ad-hoc discussions that spring up in an office, but without the forced interruption that in-person presence has. Fixing all this though really starts with getting the manager(s) on board. If the manager is a "butt-in-seats" type person who can't measure output in anything but number of hours worked, it will probably be an uphill battle.