The simple underlying point isn't whether or not you can turn them off. The ability to turn them on or off does not elevate chat bubbles to the level of worthwhile endeavour. The dev teams are already buried up to their eyeballs in projects to deal with. So many projects in fact that you still can't do something as fundamental as removing someone from your LS without them standing right in front of you. One need only look at the sorry state of LS management functions available to see that there are important pressing things that remain untouched, never mind ridiculous fringe things.

If two years from now when this game is rounded a small group of radicals known as the Chat Bubblists are still rattling their sabers about the horrible existence they suffer not having chat bubbles then SE can go ahead and implement them with a toggle and I'll toggle that garbage off and leave it off where it belongs and the chat bubblists can RP as people talking to each other with chat bubbles or whatever the hell chat bubble people do. But now is not the time to be icing a cake that's not even fully cooled or baked for that matter.