Reading the comments, it really seems like everyone’s pointing back to Merlin’s creative constraints post - if the meeting is engineered to accomplish something, it probably will. In that view, banning laptops (or cell phones, or propeller beanies, or whatever constraint is appropriate) is simply a totem of a larger point that someone thought about what the meeting is for and what is required to accomplish it. The ban is simply a way of forcing all involved to think about what needs to get done.

Even those folks who think topless meetings are silly are arguing for well-designed meetings - and that, to my mind, is the point.