I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, but it clashes with my personal strategy. I call it greasing the wheel : exchanging small talk and trivial common experiences with someone is a great way to prepare the channel for high density information exchange. It’s really a small setup investment that more than pays for itself in the long run.

I would also speculate that your own position is not as clear cut as you think. You probably hate small talk for your own reasons, and then rationalize that as an utilitarian point. People who rely on high-density information exchange are generally pretty good at small talk, and they’ll invest a lot in low-stakes, high-noise low-signal interactions.