In regards to equipping gear to "dampen" your listen score - a level 20 who isn't crossclassing will have 23 points (assuming 10 wisdom) in their detection skill of choice. That is a lot of points to "dampen" via equipment. Sure, I might not need to hit 0 listen, but I also don't want any additional messages in an event that is likely already going at a blazing pace.
That said, I did have a thought in regards to making something like this work - if it would be possible to extend the listen range only if you are actively in detect mode, that could be an excellent solution.
This even satisfies the preference for those with sensitive ears to have some sort of penalty, as elves are unable to disable detection mode. Although on that topic, my opinion is that skillpoints are indicative of a skill, not an attribute. Part of being a skilled detector is sorting the wheat from the chaff, and being able to employ those skills at their discretion.
Then again, skill values already result in weird abstractions of numbers like a bard feeling bad that they only rolled a 26 performance because the average higher level bard will routinely break higher than 60, performances worthy of higher powers - so maybe it's not such a bad thing if we get peculiar mundanity-shattering things like having your ears bleed from high listen.
Also, regarding detection being cross class for "most everyone" - eight classes are lacking detection as a class skill. Three of those classes are prestige classes, including the single least common class on the server. There are 28 classes in the game, 12 of them base. More than 50% of base classes have detection skills, and the rest aside from paladin are entirely free to multiclass and thereby unlock full detection. I do not think that qualifies as "most everyone" lacking detection.