Oh, I saw the millimeters and CV and assumed you were European; sorry!

Anyone from Europe care to comment on whether this plague has spread over there too? From what little I've read, it has.

I think, unfortunately, open-plan offices are just now the reality world-wide. Some cultures always had them (Asia), and now the cultures that had closed offices have moved that way. The US has led the world for a long time with software development, which does coincide with closed offices and then cubicles, so I think we can look forward to being a has-been and other countries becoming the leaders in software due to us adopting open-plan offices. In a couple of decades it'll probably cause a complete economic collapse and probably breakup of the US.