Generally, for us if there are issues with sound (or any other show critical aspect) more than just the sound crew need to be involved. Using a computer based system ties the deck crew to a display instead of paying attention to what is going on around them.
We seem to have a pretty effective system. Our FOH engineer has a clearcom beltpack attached to the wall and a handset. If he needs to talk to anyone he can literally pick up the phone, ask if he is clear, and then talk to whoever he needs to. The SM can also patch out the sound channel so that everyone else doesn't have to listen if that is better. But this works even on a one channel system, as the SM always wants to know what is going on. If the SM needs to get in touch with the engineer, a couple flashes of the call light works just fine.
Now, I know that a lot of schools, specifically high schools, don't always have enough wireless mics to put on every cast member, but that is what you have dressers and mic dressers for. By the time you finish tech, they should know what they are doing and who gets what mic. They should have run sheets that tell them this. The engineer shouldn't have to worry about weather or not someone got their mic. If there is a problem with a mic, the engineer should be able to take 10 seconds to jump on coms and say: "swap out so-and-so's mic" and then wait for the tech to say: "they are going to be in Spare 1" Even in a show where we had 300+ LX cues, there was enough time out of standbys for the sound engineer to take care of issues like that on coms.
Coms is for relaying show critical information, and sound issues are definitely show critical. I would imagine that most sound engineers don't want an extra screen to worry about, especially when you are doing a big show with lots of mics, a full orchestra and such.
We seem to have a pretty effective system. Our FOH engineer has a clearcom beltpack attached to the wall and a handset. If he needs to talk to anyone he can literally pick up the phone, ask if he is clear, and then talk to whoever he needs to. The SM can also patch out the sound channel so that everyone else doesn't have to listen if that is better. But this works even on a one channel system, as the SM always wants to know what is going on. If the SM needs to get in touch with the engineer, a couple flashes of the call light works just fine.
Now, I know that a lot of schools, specifically high schools, don't always have enough wireless mics to put on every cast member, but that is what you have dressers and mic dressers for. By the time you finish tech, they should know what they are doing and who gets what mic. They should have run sheets that tell them this. The engineer shouldn't have to worry about weather or not someone got their mic. If there is a problem with a mic, the engineer should be able to take 10 seconds to jump on coms and say: "swap out so-and-so's mic" and then wait for the tech to say: "they are going to be in Spare 1" Even in a show where we had 300+ LX cues, there was enough time out of standbys for the sound engineer to take care of issues like that on coms.
Coms is for relaying show critical information, and sound issues are definitely show critical. I would imagine that most sound engineers don't want an extra screen to worry about, especially when you are doing a big show with lots of mics, a full orchestra and such.