> only to have the projects scrapped because they weren't what the business needed.

That is most definitely not the programmers fault whatsoever. Scope, feature set, product/market fit, and current status should be reviewed on a weekly basis by a product owner or project manager. If a general contractor builds you the house you demanded 6 months ago but your not happy with it now, who's fault is that?

> remote meetings are simply worse than in-person meetings

You give no explanation as your reasoning for this. Generally speaking, all meetings need to have an organized flow. I work on a team of 15 people where we can easily cover all our checkins remotely in under an hour. One meeting per week.