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I don't care for what was just espoused by both mick and Rich because I believe that it runs contrary to the underlying principle of switching only on fouls. (The sideline switch on violations being an extra, but not as frequent, situation.)
Switching is not for the convenience of the officials. It is to help ensure basic fairness to the two teams. The intent of the switching mechanic is to render any difference in the way the two officials judge contact insignificant by rotating the two officials. The idea is to have the officials alternate who is in the Lead position on each end of the court, so that if one official is calling more fouls than his partner his calls should roughly alternate between the two teams. (Call a foul on this end, report, when play goes the other direction that same official is the Lead and can call a foul on that end on similar contact.) That can only work if the officials are changing positions on just the foul calls. (Yes, the sideline switch and forcing the R to be the Trail at the beginning of each quarter slightly undermines this.) For this concept to have merit, one must accept the theory that the Lead makes most of the foul calls in a two person game, and each official needs to adhere to the philosophy that he should rarely make calls out of his primary coverage area.
However, if the officials switch as they please, for example on a time-out because it saves them steps, then this concept gets skewed and one team sees more of one official on its offensive end than the other.
How much of an impact failing to switch or over-switching has is debateable. The closer the two officials are in how they call a game, the less significance it should have. Of course, if one guy calls it tightly and the other is a "let 'em play" guy, then very well may matter who is on one end for a few key possessions. Otherwise, switching would not exist and the officials would just stay on one half of the court the whole game/half/quarter.
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