I think videoconferencing sucks because the tech is so primitive. In 10 years we'll have proper videoconferences which are using augmented reality and have sufficient quality to replace physical meetings 90% of the time.
Of course, even conference calls suffer from the use of low-quality software and hardware. For some reason companies tend to use $1 microphone and $5 speakers for conference calls.
At one job, we had a full, no-expense-spared, telepresence suite. For formal meetings or presentations it was acceptable, but you still had to think about it a bit (e.g. pay special attention to whose turn it was to speak next, compensate for the body language or lack thereof, etc). For just hanging out, which is how most collaborative thinking work actually happens, it was useless, even with the best shared whiteboards money could buy. If you had 10 hours to work on a problem, you'd get far more done if you spent half of them traveling and actually stood in a room with everyone around a real whiteboard.
I could have made the exact same statement 10 years ago though. And where are we? (I think we're in a place where we realize it's really difficult to replace face-to-face.)
Of course, even conference calls suffer from the use of low-quality software and hardware. For some reason companies tend to use $1 microphone and $5 speakers for conference calls.