What makes the Earplug meta effective is the fact you can simply have them lodged in your ears free, and I do believe as it currently is you can prepare them, while I think gameplay wise, it is cheese, I don't think anyone should argue you can't prepare before combat, because if that is the case, on the extreme end of it, no one should be wearing armour before combat and we all have to spend our start emotes equipping it.
I was gonna write something when I had the time, as I think a better solution is to define a Earplug item and Earmuff item, Earplugs requiring an emote to 'activate' them, whereas Earmuffs don't, however, either you can use them with light armored helms or cannot be wearing a helmet, hadn't decided. Feel like there is alot more to consider to making it so they remain useful, but not outright cancel abilities, at least in close quarters.
Something else to mention, Earplugs I am pretty sure is something somewhat uncommonly deployed, even if you remove the fact of Azdrazi or Wight abilities, you have an alchemical that emits a piercing sound that disrupts focus and disorient, and following that, as an individual if a loud enough sound does go off and you are a Mage you would lose focus and have to reset casting. This is just simply a result of LotC 'arm races', when you sufficiently deal with enough problems, in the case of Black Church, being raided by Azdrazi plenty and learning their abilities and looking for ways to counter it (or the min maxers who look at every lore piece who scan every ability to work out how to counter it before they even know it exists). People are gonna prepare what they can before they go into battle to ensure they win, doesn't really matter whom.