I’ve literally never seen a meeting grind to a halt like that. Instead, meetings are full of half-baked ideas, and I sometimes notice show-stoppers hours later when it’s quiet.
Maybe not in the middle of a meeting but Amazon commonly has the first half of a meeting (I've experienced as long as 20 mins) to read a document by the host altogether silently before starting. People commonly would add comments during this time.
At google, doc reading is done before the meeting along with comments/replies, but during a design review, the host will go through each comment and then open a live discussion if needed.
Both of these formats allow for productive meetings but it does require a culture to support it and people to write down their thoughts ahead of the meeting and share it around.
Yes, they're called "minutes", memos or simply taking notes in meetings.
> Has it become socially acceptable to have long silences of 5-10 minutes while people formulate thoughtful replies in a conversation?
Yes, you can always say "let me think about that for a minute"