[sheepmullet]

"In contrast most teams I work with collaborate at the feature level: engineers work on the same feature, implementing different pieces together, before moving on to the next feature"

Collaboration is much better with private offices. If Steve and Jim and Sally are working on a feature together then they can all take their laptops into Steves office and work on it together.

On the other hand even something as simple as pair programming in an open office can disturb dozens of other people. Where I work teams will book out meeting rooms for a few days at a time just to be able to collaborate without annoying the rest of the floor.