The nice thing about cubicles were their abilities to absorb sound. That made headphones optional. Conversations in the next cube could be had that kept the noise down to a minimum for the neighbors.

But also, and you had a semi-permanent place to do work. So you could effectively show some personality on the walls, if you wanted. One person was learning Mandarin at the time and had a poster of common characters -- which was cool.

I went to work for an open concept that exposed concrete for a couple of years. It was very anti worker. Conversations 2 rows over were heard clearly as it would reflect off the concrete. There was always a constant level of noise in the environment. Most people just brought in headphones when they wanted to buckle down and work.