There's a significant difference between "we need to have at least one person in the realm willing to be the banker," and "we need at least one person in every region that has nobles in it to make decisions and give orders about what should happen there and then."
Just one capable commander per army, not per region. That's what we were supposed to have marshals for anyway.
Always? Hardly. Sometimes, sure, when the topic is a contentious one, but there's plenty of cheerful back-and-forth banter, and even (*gasp*) productive discussion, in good realms.
I mostly mean long distance chats involving many realms.
Within the same realm communication would still be instant, given the realm does not span over two continents or something.
But yeah, as you've pointed out ooc channels make the whole idea obsolete so I should just drop this.
