Spaces can be grouped as zones, Rooms can not. Why?
Guess what? Architects have several types of zones - apartments, evacuation area, etc
While it's true, you can schedule almost every parameter, the fact is, you cannot tag a department AND it's area on a view. You have to create a "tag" out of schedule by filtering everything and hiding columns and lines so that only two cells remain - department and summarized area. You have to repeat that for every department/room group. Now you have to drag them to your sheets and their location is completely manual. You change your plan, you have these "tags" in the wrong location. You change names, add some more, delete some and you have a complete mess.
Some parameters are completely zone-based. For example, I have to tell local authorities how many bedrooms are in an apartment. In order to keep my apartment data correct I have to insert a value to my bathroom that it belongs to the "3 bedroom apartment", so that I could have a total area of 3 bedroom apartments. That's just utterly stupid. I make a mistake, some bathroom or toilet is left unnoticed and I get wrong totals. Some of it I can solve with key schedules though. But it's extra work and hard to explain to a new team member.
Any of this would not be needed if you would have zone tool for rooms.