I think we can have our cake and eat it too. The all-glass office style at We Work could be adopted. I wish the glass was a bit thicker but the small shared office or bullpen model is ideal IMO.
So, we're in a suburb now, $/sqft is less, 2 devs in a quiet room, 2 sales in a different room.
I will not get open plan for my team. 2 persons per 144sqft office seems a good fit to me
The actual offices on the other hand, had almost no sound deadening between them, the hallways way too narrow and it was all-party, all-the-time. People from other companies getting absolutely smashed on keg beer starting at noon was a daily problem. At the one building I went to that had entire floors of conference rooms, you could hear everything from 3 conference rooms over, making phone calls impossible.