At a meeting of the Institute of Broadcast Sound earlier this year, Anthony Faust asked why clapper idents always seemed to be an inaudible mumble combined with an out of focus shot?
Answer: "Not enough in the budget". A member claimed that without a third member of the sound crew with a separate microphone for the ident, and with actors and recordist 100 yards away from the camera, it's just not possible to do a decent ident any more (quoted from the April/May issue of Line Up).
Unbelievable. Questions arise such as what is the boom op doing? Why can't he pan over for the clap? Surely he isn't 100 yards away from the camera and actors? Why isn't the recordist closer to the camera and actors? (Perhaps he would rather be at home and have the actors phone their parts in.) Why can't the recordist put the verbal ident on prior to each take? Most good mixer panels have an ident mic, if not a clip mic, on the panel or on the recordist themselves fed into a spare channel - it's all that is needed. It's not very often that all the mic inputs are in use.
Claps, when being used along with verbal idents are important and sound crews of even two should use their ingenuity to record them clearly.
If you think that you are punishing the producer for short crewing then think again, it's the editorial department you're punishing and they don't deserve it.
As for out of focus boards, then sack the operator and focus puller.
Idents are part of the job.