wow, great discussion! Thanks, folks! I'll have to give that appy a try. May well be worth the $10? I do like the suggestion of turning the phone over to use the speaker. However, handling the phone hand-to-screen will still cause issues.
Bluetooth is THE way to go. Unfortunately...they're ALL wayyyy to quiet for my ears. I have a Plantronics unit that does okay. It was decent with my PPC6700 but now it's a lot quieter through the Touch, for some odd reason. Not sure if anyone ever found the registry edit to fix that. But, in any case, I have tried LOTS of bluetooth earphones and not a one works for me. And that's a shame, because there are some really nice ones out there. My hearing in my right ear is about 25% to 30% worse than some folks and 70-75% worse in my left ear (so everything is done at the right). Nobody makes BT earpieces with the hearing impaired in mind.