Like everything, working with remote teams is also a skill. May be you worked with some team in poland and they were brilliant, good for you; you don't have to manage. But all remote teams aren't like that. The mantra for working with any remote teams is to micro manage. Have everyday calls with them, specifically tell them what you are expecting.
Before that, I myself was a remote developer, before traveling to US. As many of you already pointed, this depends on the vendor you go with. There are lot of multinational companies who outsource work and some of them are really good. A lot of discussion is going on that the teams have reduced the specifications given to them again I would tell you that it all depends on the team you choose. I never did that myself, hell the person who outsourced the worked to me, was not very knowledgeable. So does that mean I can judge everybody who outsourced work to us?
makecheck said, the software outsourcing never really worked, when I was working in that MNCs we had projects ranging from huge telecom companies to Aviation companies. And those projects ran close to 5 years - 10 years. How did the CXO reap the benefits for 10 years if he doesn't see value in it?