Its more of a compromise between the two. Ideally with HUD display type helmets in 5 - 10 years, we won't be having these discussions on helmet compatibility with end user.
Actually I dont think so. The Level of Ballistic Protection is probably less than the Ear Covering of a regular PASGT Helmet. The Reason that (the original PASGT) was found inadequet was because Operators suffered from a high degree of ear damage due to noise - from gunfire, flashbangs and grenades - This ear damage lead to lot of issues including disorientation, balance issues and general combat ineffectivness amongst operators who had spent more than 3 years in theater. The Comm systems that went into the PASGT helmets could not be upgraded to include larger headphones due to space constraints.
(on a side note: Naval SpecOps used High Cut Helmets for a different issue as well - safety hazards of water catching the ear cups on the sides of older helmets at a high speed -)
CAG was asked to evolve their "Skateborder Helmet" concept with Ballistic Helmets and Noise cancellation headphones - This is how the "High Cut" Helmets came to be.
The HighCut + Headphones Combo proved a multiple things.
1. Significant reduction in ear/Hearing trauma, Resulting in higher readiness levels for SOCOM and JSOC. Lessons trickling down to the wider MARSOC units and Allied SOF units
2. Superior Communication capability within units in a firefight. - Less white noise and significantly lower incidents of communications being miss-understood.
3. NO significant change in statistics to head trauma from sharpnel etc due to removal of ballistic covering for ear guard. Supporting the fact that incidents of Sharpnel hiting the ear area of the Head was small enough to warrant changing it with superior noise cancellation.
