HI Energy, I beg to differ; headsets on or off wont change anything in returning a call on the frequency if you are not at least a bit focused on what you are doing and where your airplane is flying. No need to "glue" the headsets to your ears and get ear skin irritation or other kind of ear inflammation to maintain good radio discipline and monitoring. I absolutely agree with the thread starter as more and more pilots from different airlines in the Gulf seem to be flying unfocused on the radio for whatever reason. Definitely a training department problem as I believe that the approach to radio comms is wrong: New joiners in the airline, second officers and captains alike are encouraged to challenge every single instruction they get from ATC, so, not hearing a call is a kind of "okay thing" which will be camouflaged by a "very good crew CRM " as they will pretend that the instruction was unclear, transmission garbled or whatever other BS and ask the Controller to repeat whatever he might have said. Many many years ago when I started flying, instructors would stop your training or would fail you on a line check if the clearance from ATC was not jotted down on a piece of paper, let alone if you would not hear a call or a clearance . Radio discipline is on the decline, especially in the region, and is as annoying to the ATC, as it is to us fellow pilots.
Safe flying.