When a small team is working together in the same space, it's very useful to be able to easily ask a simple question or initiate a design conversation whenever the need arises without needing to arrange a formal meeting. The extra overhead associated with an arranged meeting tends to discourage such interactions.

I operate in both modes all the time (remote and non-remote) and there's a huge difference in the amount of information that gets exchanged. It's so different that I try to make sure we always have a local tech lead for each project we are working on.