Additional thought: clothing, tarps, and tents that were quiet in the rain would be a nice alternative.

The sound of rain on a hood, tarp roof, or tent can be nice but gets old after a while and it radically reduces your abiity to hear other things - sort of like an auditory version of looking into a light or fire reducing your night vision. It would be nice to have a choice of gear that eliminated the sharp, noisy pitter-patter for a quieter outdoor experience where you can hear the natural sounds around you - including that of rain hitting the landscape and wildlife adjusting to rain, etc..

I wonder how far off you can hear the sound of rain hitting a synthetic jacket, tarp, or tent? I'll bet it is a suprising distance. I can think of several situations where it would be nice to have the option to avoid announcing your presence throughout the neighborhood.

Something you can do to minimize that noise if your static, is pitch your tent under tree cover. You can also run a line of cord over your tent and place some laying boughs over them, though its a bit excessive. I will certainly notice less noise in dead fall shelters than my rainfly'd tent though its not nearly as comfortable.

I suppose depending on how much auditory level you need you can switch out your rain shells hood for a gortex, windstopper type of watch cap.

The fact is regardless if its falling on you or just falling, the sound of rain is going to create a lot of environmental noise. Even if you are in a dead fall with watch cap, the rain falling on everything else will mute sound travel.

Yep. And if you are one of the quiet ones it is a great time to view wildlife, either as they move by or as you are able to approach them.