To the people who prefer open offices I have two words. Cognitive. Dissonance.
:-) More seriously: It is somewhat a matter of personal preferrence but I think all/most people need some space and are not comfortable by others being constantly inside their personal space. You can do this experiment. Go to an empty meeting room and work there. Then ask your coworker to sit exactly behind you while you work. How does that feel?
I've had some of my best team and communication in an environment with offices. Need to talk, get into someone's office. On most days we had the entire team in someone's office talking for hours about architecture, code reviews, etc. We weren't disturbing anyone else and it was just the right space for our small team. Most of the time though we were able to focus on what we were trying to do without distractions. I contrast this with open offices where people never talk to each other and seem unable to do work that requires any concentration.
Not everyone can wear headphones all day. Those that do I recommend that you get your hearing checked. Visual distractions are also a prolem.
To conclude again on a slightly humorous note, is Oculus VR the next step in open space? Get an office while we cram you one on top of another? Your very own virtual personal space? I just need my man-cave, sorry.
Edit: It's also very much a question of how much space per person is available in whatever scheme is used and how many people per open area. It's not a problem for me to share one large office. I once visited one large known tech company where they built a new space and offered people the option of going two per office or one in the open. All the offices were full.