The skylobby design works well enough - to get from the ground to any floor requires a maximum of one transfer, and elevator shafts can be stacked. The (original) NYC WTC towers for example had an elevator pattern which was:
Express elevators to floor 44.
Express elevators to floor 76.
Shuttle express elevator between 44 and 76 that didn't go to the ground level.
Local elevator banks served groups of 7-8 floors and would only take people to the nearest skylobby (or the ground for the lower third of the building).
Tourist / freight elevators which could stop at 2, 44, 76, and 107 (possibly also 106, I forgot).
The only drawback of this design was, if you wanted to go from, say, floor 77 to floor 73, you would have to take 3 elevators (with transfers on 76 and 44). But the overwhelming number of elevator trips in any building involve the ground floor anyway, so this isn't really a big deal.