>From where I'm standing, productivity doesn't look so great. It's an open secret in my remote-heavy, North American west-coast social circle that everyone knocks off at 1-2pm when the east coast people are definitely logged off. Probably the east coast people are doing the same thing, but in the morning. Lots of happily phoning it in.

That hasn't been my experience at all. I work for a multinational company with teams spread across the globe - daily meetings with West Coast, London, and Mumbai and productivity has been fantastic in the past 2 years across all R&D teams (can't speak for others). Are you sure this isn't just an issue with your internal culture?