"War Room" is gaining popularity over conventional cubicle

Barriers are not completely pointless. It's not always "ironic" to send small emails with questions, then wait for the reply. It's also not always good to be able to ask a question simply by waving.

Some programming problems require sustained concentration to solve. Some developers are more able than others to deal with frequent interruptions... but many just cannot do without some extended periods of uninterrupted focus.

Sometimes it's worth it to sacrifice that; I actually do feel that the war room style environment is incredibly useful, and I can work perfectly well that way as long as I can put aside "the hard stuff" for later. But if there is no "later" when I can shut down the IMs & emails & conversations and achieve some real focus, that's a serious problem.

Is there any alternative solutions for the WAR ROOM and stand-up meetings ....possibly any web 2.0 alternative ???

In the current project I am on, we havea WAR room where all participants of the project sit in, even the architects and managers, along with all the developers. The requirements engineers are also available in the war room. There is a total of about 10 people in the room at any time. A couple of rules that make the use of a war room beneficial:

* any one has the right to say hold on when asked a question
* questions are mostly prefixed with "if you have a second, can I please ask a little of your time"
* any managerial meetings that may disrupt "sustained concentration" are done outside the war room
* many small requests between developers are done by IM to minimize noise.
* screen sharing is used when necessary

With these implicit rules, the benefits of a War Room are being achieved.