They are free to return to the office and work with each other in person then.

Going by my own experience, everything being remotely or everything being in the office (regularly, but not necessary all the time) works best.

It's hard to make a hybrid approach work, where some people are mostly in the office, and some people are always remote.

However the extra burden falls mostly on the remote people, so I see not much of a reason to disallow people from going remote.

Right, so there are more reasons for RTO than tax breaks and stealth layoffs then. Good to know.

RTO usually means mandated, company wide RTO, not "there's an office if you want." So no, not right.

Ok sure, but God also forbid there might be people who don't? Or if someone on there team wants to work in an office with them they should have to go in like it or not?

RTO is clearly not about 'end-employee' preferences, having an office can be about that, but RTO is just come to the office regardless of your preference.

They are not afforded that opportunity. They are required to work with remote people/groups across split sites.