Most solutions work great with one-on-one conversions with little noise in the background. The part that's tricky is when you have 5-10 people talking with game sounds playing. Or, even worse, when people have their Vent/TS audio going through their speakers and they use a sensitive mic. Nothing is more distracting than hearing myself two and three times, especially when I'm trying to bark shit out during a raid.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that the only people who could be clearly understood without fail are the people who had some sort of headset. The mics just aren't as sensitive on those so you don't have to worry about hearing the dog down the street barking when they hit the push to talk button.
And it definitely beats getting a unidirectional mic, putting it on a boom stand, and keeping it in front of your face while you play.
EDIT: I missed his post about being serious about a headset, but my point remains that I think this would be a MUCH better setup in terms of quality for what you'd be paying.
I was referring to using headphones (and damned good ones at that) and a very nice mic. For under $200 you could get something like this
Cardioid Mic (you'd need an
XLR to 3.5mm cable) and a very nice pair of headphones (and you could use them as regular headphones, since you wouldn't be lugging a whole headset around to listen to music.)
Yeah, something like that IS a pain to set up, but probably 95%+ of "computer" mics are omnidirectional (likely including headset ones). Cardioid mics have high sensativity in the front, and quite low sensitivity in other directions. They're great for avoiding picking up unwanted sounds, and a mic like the one I linked would probably sound 1000% clearer than just about any mic made for a computer. Combine that with a good set of headphones, and a bit of jery-rigging to get it set up somewhere unobtrusive, and you have a VERY high quality setup that likely sounds better (both in the headphones, and to whoever is listening to you) than a headset.
It's probably too much of a pain for NewF, but if he's willing to put a bit of work into it, I'd bet you any money he anyone he plays with would get MUCH clearer sound from him than if he was using a headset (even a good quality one) and he'd be able to enjoy some great headphones as well.
The mic and cord would cost about $46.04 before shipping, which leaves $153.96 for finding a good pair of headphones.
Grado SR-80i headphones (the same ones I have) cost $99 plus shipping, etc. So even with shipping and tax, you might have some money left over.
Of course, I wouldn't blame someone for choosing a different headphone than the Grados for gaming, simply because of the comfort issues. Grados need to be broken in, and even then aren't amazingly comfortable over long periods of time. But basically anything in the $100 range for quality headphones (Sennheiser, AKG, Audio-Technica etc.) would likely sound better than a headset.