I have gone through a lot of headsets and found all of the brands I have used are lacking in build quality. It seems the headbands break on a lot of them or the wire develops a short. Currently I am using a Corsair 1500 and the microphone went out. Instead of buying a whole new headset I purchased a
Zalman Zm-Mic1 High Sensitivity Headphone Microphone for under $9.00. I clip the mic to the Corsair wire and everyone in my WoW raid group can hear me fine over Ventrillo.
When the headphone part of my headset goes out I am going to purchase a decent pair of headphones like the
Sennheiser HD-280 PRO Headphones and match them with a clip-on mic.
I realize that I am going to be missing the various effects that a gaming headset can offer and I am going to have two cords going to my computer instead of just one but the value of my option is worth the hassle for me.