oddly enough I spoke to Linda about this specific point about a year ago - that modern offices are not well designed for developers. I think she would agree with you and so do I.
Most good agile approaches I have seen avoid dogma and doctrine and work on empirical results i.e. do what works.
When it comes to offices, a combination of a team space plus quiet areas for concentration was the ideal setup recommended when Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham developed XP on the C3 project.
That is a long way from the open office with rows of desks - these are nothing but cost saving and has no scientific basis behind it for productive work.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
