Depends on what I'm working on. A tough problem that could take me a full day to complete? On those days, I miss my office-with-a-door. A relatively simple debugging task that requires input and verification from my coworkers? It's so much faster to just look up and say, "Hey John, can you glance at this?" without having to walk through a hallway into someone else's office.
For me personally, cubicles and open layouts are both equally distracting, but I prefer open layouts simply because I hate sitting in a box.
I'd much rater have a real office, but for me cubicles are in now way quieter or less distracting then an open setup.
I wonder what kind of cubicles the people have, to whom the open setup is that much worse? Maybe some kind of sound insulated luxury cubicle?