Agreed. Although it does not have to be that way. We could have a physical, post-pandemic office that addresses your concerns (e.g. quiet zones, pods for calls, etc)
But what's the point in coming to the office to sit in a pod or isolation cubicle all day?
What I liked was that our floor had its own atmosphere. Where people understood the needs of IT work and respected our conversations (eg headset on = leave me alone). That's all gone now with these hippie flex offices.
I don't see how the office could be made productive again with flex desking. It wasn't like the old office was perfect, there was already a huge reduced productivity from the late 90s when people had actual offices where you could close the door. It was already pretty poor with the large open spaces but it's now been ruined completely.
Let's say I'm in the quiet zone and someone wants to have an online meeting with me. What do I do now? Run to the nearest pod? What if they are all taken, do I take the call in the hallway? Do I go to the not-quiet zone and have my meeting surrounded by people participating in other meetings, or even worse, participating in the same meeting introducing a sub-second delay? And how comfortable are these pods anyway, are they good enough for meeting back-to-back? Because if I'll stay in the pod all day I might as well stay home.
I believe you can have comfortable working places (essentially offices with doors that close) that will be expensive OR cheap shared desks that optimize space but accentuate distractions. I don't think you can have a cheap, distraction-free environment, but I'm open to be proven wrong.