On point 2), humans are still very much "social animals", and time and time again I see that business works a lot better face to face, and trust is much more easily gained.
That has been repeatedly established, and there are very strong reasons why people with very limited time still travel a lot of hours to conduct their business.
Not everyone is the same, but it is the norm rather than the exception.
http://www.iacconline.org/content/files/WhyFace-to-FaceBusin...
From the paper:
"From a psychological perspective there are a number of positive features about faceto-face meetings that cannot always be achieved as well via other forms of
communication.
Face-to-face meetings allow members to engage in and observe verbal and nonverbal behavioral styles not captured in most computer mediated communication
devises. There are nuances associated with hand gestures, voice quality and
volume, facial expressions, and so forth that are simply not captured in email
discussion, chat rooms, and the like. Even videoconferencing does not capture all of
the dynamics of group members (e.g. the expression of others while one member is
talking, etc.).
A further advantage of face-to-face meetings is that they occur in “real time” as
opposed to non-synchronized time. Computer mediated communications often are
delayed because of a variety of reasons, not always received, and sometimes
disrupted because of technical problems.
Another feature is simply the fact that face-to-face business meetings provide human
contact among members. Human contact is a primitive need among human beings.
We are social creatures and isolation is harmful. A recent article in the New Yorker
magazine8
discussed the impact of social isolation and concluded that “simply to
exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people” (p. 36). There
is much psychological research affirming this proposition—that individuals need
personal contact with others to satisfy deep primitive psychological needs. Face-toface business meetings help meet these needs. Emailing and even teleconferences
are not as likely to meet these needs, notwithstanding the enormous popularity of
Facebook which basically provides electronic connections between social “friends”.
However, the popularity of this website suggests that people might be even hungrier
for social friends than can be satisfied in their present day-to-day work and personal
lives.
Similarly, business meetings allow participants opportunities to develop important
exchange relationships among themselves. These exchanges can be in the form of
business negotiations, personal favors, promises, understandings, etc. that cannot
often be achieved via other forms of communication because of their personal and
informal nature. One psychological theory that emphasizes this notion is “social
exchange theory” where human relations are viewed as an exchange of rewards
among individuals or achieving equity between “what you put in” compared to “what
you get out” of relationships."
http://www.forbes.com/forbesinsights/Business_Meetings_FaceT...
http://online.wsj.com/ad/article/globaltravel-face