I work remotely, and I have to disagree with your points:

     So technically, he billed at $60 an hour

Remote developers often do not have the same benefits as local employees. They do not have the same protections found in employment contracts, they do not have healthcare benefits, they must also buy their own hardware and office equipment and other requirements. Not to mention that if the work is contract-based, they must also do a little marketing.

Even if your assertion is true, $60 is dirt cheap.

     A local guy in your office might have gotten things 
     done in half the time and cost you just as much.

While it is possible to find local talent, the pool of good developers is limited, while the demand is really high. Indeed, local talent has the advantage of being local. However, I would rather work with a remote developer that can get problems solved, than with a hypothetical good local developer that I don't have, or with a local developer that creates more problems than it solves.

     There will always be a delay between a request and 
     the work actually starting

Yes, but in my view, that's a really good thing. As a side effect: (1) management is forced to cut the crap and make specifications as clear as possible + (2) it means that I have a lot of time in which I can concentrate on solving the hard problems, instead of lamenting about the color of a link or have meetings about the next meetings we'll have.

Even when working with local developers, it's always a good idea to NOT interrupt the workflow of developers, unless it is an emergency. If you have to fix the specs, or set out new directions, and you need to do that often, that means you suck at being a manager. That's why Scrum sprints take 1 or 2 weeks during which the developers manage their own schedule, and if something happens that changes the priorities / specs, then the sprint must be restarted (throwing away unfinished stuff, starting from scratch later) ... that's a little extreme from my point of view, but there are good reasons for why some people prefer this.

There are also good tools for managing remote developers, tools such as bug and feature trackers, tools such as Git or ReviewBoard, etc... Really big open-source projects, such as Linux, scaled like crazy with contributers from all over the world. So I really can't see your point.

     If there's an emergency, well, you get the picture.

Personally I'm on call 24/7.