That's right, it's bimodal. Be all on-site or all-remote. Every exception incurs a cost.
The worst cases are the 90%/10% splits. I have seen the one remote join the meeting from his hot tub (fucker). I have been the one remote fighting with the VC while the rest of the team patiently humors me. The one exception drags the rest of the team down.
~40 software/dev folks. Around 18 are 'remote'. There is a primary office, and most of the 'remote' are within driving distance, and we're expected to be onsite (or available to be onsite) 1 day per week - collaboration/f2f/etc. And it works for most of those 18 - they work together on some teams, and most of their colleagues are also at the main office. My 'team' is me and another guy, but we work on independent projects, and everyone we deal with is in other states - not drivable. It's hard to get support from anyone internal - they're mostly on a couple of large teams. Even when we get together f2f, no one understands the particulars of the projects we're on, so there's not as much value as for most of the rest of the teams.
I enjoy most of the setup, but it's still a bit challenging being the 'exception' at times.
The worst cases are the 90%/10% splits. I have seen the one remote join the meeting from his hot tub (fucker). I have been the one remote fighting with the VC while the rest of the team patiently humors me. The one exception drags the rest of the team down.