No, you aren't contrarian. Remove timezones, and it still doesn't help me sort out if it's morning in Italy yet, or if business hours have started. In fact, it's more difficult, since I'd then have to figure out what Italian business hours are.
Factories and offices usually run business from 9 to 18, but YMMV ;)
It's the same amount of effort either way - either you look up the timezone for Italy or you look up the business hours for Italy.
The difference is there are fewer opportunities for mistakes. In particular if you get the lookup wrong (e.g. you looked up India instead of Italy by mistake), the other party notices your mistake and can correct you.
Right, but they've still had to look it up. And if they looked it up last week, they'll be wrong this week.