I'm not sure big in-person meetings in rooms are especially useful but eating with people, having discussions in small conference rooms, social events, etc. were. Big online meetings never engaged me much and I certainly almost never rewatched parts of a meeting. And latterly it was sort of "Who are these people" if I hadn't known them before.

I do agree that video conferences that have agendas, collaborative notes, and so forth matured during COVID (though we did them before) but don't require a video meeting.

But people have different preferences.