I'm not the OP, obviously, but have had similar experiences. At a previous employer my team had a WFH day once a week, on which maybe 10-20% of people would work from home and be roughly as productive as they were in the office, 60% would take it and not do much or be responsive (e.g. if you pinged them about something, you'd be lucky to get a response in less than an hour) and the rest of us rarely took it up. So that is based off experience, albeit anecdotal.
I accept that it's possible to have a team that would do significantly better than that, but definitely don't agree with the utopian view that you can offer WFH to just any employee and they'll be productive, and crucially that it won't affect other employees who might need their input.
Humans are all different, not everyone can work from home and not everyone can work in an office. That is just the way we humans work. Some love to work in a busy kitchen stressing the whole day and then cook when they come home too. Others can't see a kitchen when they get home.
I wonder how much "can't work from home" comes from lack of experience. Remote work is still rather rare, and when people first try it, it's quite possible they haven't grown the discipline it requires. Could it come with time? Could people change?
I'm not talking about dicipline, that is just an easy excuse to tell people to get their act together instead of just accepting that we all are diffrent. Some have troubles around other people, others cant be alone.
I accept that it's possible to have a team that would do significantly better than that, but definitely don't agree with the utopian view that you can offer WFH to just any employee and they'll be productive, and crucially that it won't affect other employees who might need their input.