Mac microphone line in only port is a real drag

Macintosh is high end. I know this. I think they are far better than PCs in most respects. But little things keep annoying me that I just can't understand. Maybe I am being dense or lacking some foresight.

For instance, I hated the lack of a 2 button mouse on the MacBooks since forever but since multitouch, I think I am a little more speedy because of it.

This month's installment is the lack of a microphone-in port. As far as I know, no current Macintoshes have the ability to plug in one of those cheap (yes I know- cheap != Apple) Skype headsets and start VOIPing. I've used a great Plantronics Bluetooth headset for years (which works great btw) so I've never really had an issue with this or the need to personally address it. However, our office is jumping on the Skype train wholeheartedly and I thought it'd best if we buy all of our employees headsets to help with the adoption.

I, of course, got the best rated, economical, "Skype Approved" headsets I could find -- a typical pair from Labtec. They work great on our PCs but the mic-in port doesn't work on Macs. It took about 7 seconds to find out why on Google. The mic-in port on all Macs needs a powered mic because it is line-in only.

Sheiza!

The good news is that all MacBooks have a solid built in microphone which works great in most ambient noise environments. For the people who work in a bit noisier environments, or on Mac Pros, we will be getting USB headsets. We tried getting cheap USB-mic sound adapters but they crashed Skype on Mac. Bluetooth are a bit expensive still and aren't as user friendly as we would like.

While USB Skype headsets start at about three times the price of traditional base-model headsets, the quality is a bit better.

Still, though, I wonder how hard it would have been to put a powered mic port into the Mac? Did it really save Apple the money/space/aesthetic? Was it worth it?