Sure, I agree it's not "asking much" relative to the requirement of a lot of employers that you be in the office every day. That doesn't mean it's something to advertise as if it were a perk.

>Its a lot harder to know what a person has been actually doing and working on without a little bit of occasional face time

I don't get this. You only find out what your remote colleagues are working on 2-4 times a year when you have a company retreat?

>but for me its always been very helpful to get a good feel for who is on the other end of the keyboard, which becomes super useful for collaberations.

Yeah, I just don't see this either. I think I collaborate fine with my colleagues. I think the focus on work-related things that occurs in IRC makes it easier to respect one another professionally. It's not the best medium for some things, but it's a great medium for collaborating on a work-related issue, especially issues that require the sharing of logs or lines of code; it's a lot easier to send the message in Slack and collaborate that way than trying to do it in person and cram around one guy's computer.