I work in a completely distributed team and I think it works well if you have the right demographic in your team. The one problem I see with the model, is that

I work in a completely distributed team and I think it works well if you have the right demographic in your team. The one problem I see with the model, is that it does little for junior developers or interns that are just starting out. There's a minimum bar that a developer has to reach before I think they can work in a distributed team. Folks just starting out need a bit more hands on mentoring and the distributed model makes that difficult. I wouldn't hire an intern, or fresh college graduate into a distributed team. I think the issues around the talent crunch have something to do with not enough people in the field. Going distributed solves the problem of needing experienced folks, but it does little for newly minted developers.