I think, it depends largely on how people work together. In some occasions, when people really work on similar problems on the same part of a project, it could really be like you described. But I have seen that in really rare cases and seldom with more than may be 3 or 4 persons. Not ten persons and also not scrum teams. In scrum teams (as I have seen them), the tasks of the persons are so different, that you seldom have that kind of communications. Also when the micro-communications, that you talked about are between two or may be three people -- there it would be better, if the three work together in one office or if they could go out of the office and meet somewhere where they don't disturb others. In such cases, I would opt for offices of 3-4 persons that work in the same areas.
I would really opt for offices of 3-4 persons. Scrum offices, or team of ten offices are to noisy for my opinion and most of the discussions will be non-interesting for the other peoples (for example developers are not interested in the managers talk or the product owner will not be interested in details from developers work .... also documentation people will not be interested in). If others could be interested or should say something about a topic, it is always better to have a spontaneous meeting.
I would really opt for offices of 3-4 persons. Scrum offices, or team of ten offices are to noisy for my opinion and most of the discussions will be non-interesting for the other peoples (for example developers are not interested in the managers talk or the product owner will not be interested in details from developers work .... also documentation people will not be interested in). If others could be interested or should say something about a topic, it is always better to have a spontaneous meeting.