And there is something to still getting together to bond as a team, work through problems together and learn how each other work. I travel enough to make sure I work with the team, bond with them and so we all learn how each other function. This makes remote possible, but it is never a panacea of perfection.

Don't misunderstand me, I am very much in favor of remote teams/people/work, but taking a company that is established and adding remote workers just doesn't work without a lot of process changes, additions, the right expectations and time. Starting a company as remote friendly is a lot easier if you follow well known patterns that work but even than there are challenges you wouldn't face otherwise.

Even business structure/registrations etc have to be updated/changed, let's say you are small company in the U.S. state of Colorado and now you employ people in 5 other states. Your company will have to register in each of those states as a "foreign" employer and pay workers comp, taxes etc within those states. Yes, 3rd party payroll services help with a lot of the tax side, but there are so many more things that have to be monitored, registered etc. Now, say you do this cross international boundaries, it gets even more complex if you want to do things legally and have employees. Notice I said employees not contractors, that is a different situation.