So I have found that when connected to my bluetooth headset, if I plug in wired headphones multimedia audio is rerouted from the headset to my headphones which saves power since system audio is not constantly being transmitted to the headset. I could always keep wired headphones plugged in all the time but this shows that it is possible for the multimedia and system audio to go through the phone speakers when the headset is connected. I just need to figure out how pulse audio routing is configured in terms of activities ie: multimedia vs system sounds vs calls when a bluetooth headset profile device is plugged in.

Good for you? But just because you never bought a phone that routed audio over a headset doesn't mean they never existed. I haven't been to the moon. That doesn't mean the NASA footage was filmed in Nevada and was an elaborate conspiracy to fool the Russians.

Nokia has had several phones that allowed media audio to go over bluetooth headsets. I used to do this all the time with my N6230, in which the media player and J2ME apps would all have sound routed through a headset if enabled. Likewise, an Ericson I owned and the FreeRunner I had both did this as well. (In fact, call audio was about the only thing that didn't route properly over a bluetooth headset in the FreeRunner.)

I understand the desire for a setting to change this behavior. But it's not like this is a set-in-stone standard, as you seem to be portraying it to be.

I wouldn't mind this so much except for the fact that since every system sound (including opening and closing programs) is piped to the headset which runs the battery down extremely quickly making using a bluetooth headset with the n900 impractical. Which is a shame because it seems I will have to ditch the n900 just because of this.

Also there is already the a2dp profile which was designed to transmit mp3 quality multimedia audio from the phone whereas the headset profile is heavily compressed with a 8khz sampling rate that was only designed to be as good as the gsm call not to mention being mono.