The middle ground is small group offices, and many (most?) people are fairly happy there. Actual giant open-plan offices can be distracting beyond what's tolerable.
I thrive in the small group office. You get the flow of ideas that are trying to be achieved with the open plan, but without as much of the noise. And it's easier to call out one or two people for being difficult to work with than it is many. I hated a private cube(big effin cube with high walls and all) because I felt like I was in solitary. Sometimes I want to bullshit about what I did over the weekend, or discuss a philisophical question about what I'm doing. Seems weird to pop into someone else's private space to do so.
Our open office of ~30 developers and engineers is fairly happy, once we got managers out of their offices and stuck the noisy client services/salespeople into the offices.