I read something by Will Self the other day, bemoaning the ubiquity of piped music. Which might sound like a really obvious old-mannish thing to whinge about, but I think he has a point. It's good when you can just hear a hubbub of conversation or even just peace and quiet if you're by yourself and want to have a pint while you read or do a crossword.
It depends on the kind of place of course, I mean the pub we were in on Monday is definitely a music sort of pub. It's good to have a choice. I don't see why we couldn't have smoking and non-smoking pubs, would it really have been impossible to legislate for that?