Based my personal research, there is no known workaround. None of the operating systems, except those based on stock Samsung kernels, properly support bluetooth. They all have issues reliably initializing an audio and microphone connection to the headset after a voice command button press.
This includes ALL of the CyanogenMod releases.
It is a fairly underreported issue, and when it is reported, noone much cares - evidently, very few people actually use bluetooth to voice command their phone. So, it doesn't get any dev time. Anyone who tries to use their phone intelligently in their car, on a bicycle, or, in my case, on their motorcycle integrated with helmet comms should STRONGLY disagree. But, not everyone can sit about comfortably all day in horn rimmed glasses and ironic facial hair in a starbucks.
In my opinion, this relegates all of these releases to mere "toy" status, since this is an elementary feature of a modern phone - but as I understand it, the problem isn't particularly curable in any case due to somewhat hostile engineering and documentation practices by everyone's favorite, Samsung.
I have done as much work as I could do in researching the problem, reporting the problem and even studying how to collect logging information and eventually, a few attempts to roll my own modified kernel to attempt to solve the problem, to no avail - keep in mind I am not an android developer by any means, and have gone to some effort to learn what I could so as not to be merely a complainer.
My advice, if you insist on departing from the vendor operating system release series, is to seek the Samsung kernel-based mods, such as Ditto Note, as you have been doing. These have a higher chance of properly supporting the headset natively. They have recently moved to a kitkat release (that I haven't tested yet,) so that may satisfy.
As for myself, I will likely leave Samsung behind for my next phone, for something a little more open source friendly, hardware-wise. Being at the mercy of vendor updates and the S-voice for something I need to use more than 3 hours a day on the road has made me feel quite a fool.
