I can pick up a piece of paper, scribble on it, ask if people prefer X or Y, draw on a whiteboard, wave my hands descriptively, and generally get much better communication with people who are right in front of me.

Nah, there is all sorts of informal feedback that you get from actually being local: cross talk, voice tone, facial expressions, half-sketched white boards. It's just a different thing, at least for me.