How often does telecommuting really jive with a senior/leadership position? If you're just coding away then sure I can see telecommuting being very viable. If part of your job is earning the respect of a team and being able to drive them and steer them in a direction, then not being physically there could very well be a huge barrier.
Not to mention only really wanting telecommuting does potentially imply less commitment to the company and/or position. That might be a turn off for a senior role.
The best management team I've ever worked with is in my current telecommuting position (entire company is distributed). Not being physically present around each other has really not had any noticeable effect on the respect/presence that any of the management has been able to make.
I know that my team's direct manager has huge respect from all of us (and the upper management as well), he keeps our projects on track, gives us the tools we need, and makes sure any obstacles in our path are quickly removed. And as with any good team, he steps out of the way and let's us work. Thinking about it, the biggest issue I've had with management in the past is not knowing when to get out of the way, I think remote work makes this easier.
The strange thing I always find about the common critiques of telecommuting is that there are many successful oss projects that are run entirely distributed and large communities, like HN for example, that probably have more social complexity than a similar sized physical group. Surely there are certain HNers who have you respect even though you've probably never even had a 1-on-1 chat with them.
Well, actually one multi-million company I was working for had chief architect on telecommute basis and it worked really well. I suppose it's more about processes and company DNA. But I have to admit, I saw such case just once :)
I've been an intercontinental telecommuter for several years now, in a senior individual contributor role, and it has worked out quite well overall.
A friend of mine for a while managed a small non-telecommuting team as a telecommuter, but went back to an individual contributor role after that.
His theory was that telecommuting for an individual works if that individual has a "telecommuting mindset" (self driven, communicative, etc). In order for telecommuting to work for a manager, all his subordinates need a "telecommuting mindset" as well.
I'm telecommuting for a very large corporation as a senior developer for over 6 months now. I've had great success in driving the team into a direction which I feel is best for specific projects and the team as a whole.
I think the telecommute aspect is really a non-issue for some people. Companies would be wise to consider it for the low overhead.
People/organizations have bought into telecommuting to varying degrees. Like you, I'm still pretty skeptical, but there are certainly teams/individuals that wouldn't work any other way and have found success.
He targeted companies that claim to accommodate telecommuting. Not hire when being asked looks sneaky.