Many thanks for the comments so far. Its neat to see a topic percolate over a few days. (Although now I may kill it . . . .)
Rookie Dude: My fault for not rewriting dead ball when foul call was the term I wanted. Of course youre right, nobody expects or would want a switch on every whistle. A switch every couple of minutes or on the shooting fouls is plenty good.
And Id second Stat-Mans views: if the officials are hustling, the rest of it is largely moot. But then I cant remember seeing too many hustling officials who failed to switch at least a handful of times per half, whether the game is running time or stop time, first game of the day or last game of the day. Id say switching on a regular basis seems to be a leading indicator of hustle, good positioning, consistency, and talent. And spending an entire half unswitched is a leading indicator of the opposite. If fatigue, the pay, a running clock, the month of the year, etc., are factors, so be it those things will figure in to some limited extent. But if you do something well and youre proud of that, youre going to want to do it the right way, and that usually wins out.
Unfortunately, I think that means that the officials who have been planted at one end of the court for an entire half are going to be the least receptive to being called on it (even respectfully), as Rainmaker suggests.
Last April I saw an official, working SOLO, getting from baseline to baseline for one 28-minute stop time 6th grade AAU game and part of a second one. Then he caught a partner, and hustled his way through that game and a third one. And he is an extremely solid official. I think theres some correlation there. The active players who care about positioning are generally (generally) the better players; the active officials who care about positioning are generally (generally) the better officials.
And (all together now . . .) the coaches who are active in practice but then sit still long enough to get their game chair warm are generally the best coaches.
No argument here.