i'm also an audio nerd and although I do everything in the box when i'm recording, i agree completely that it's way easier to use outboard stuff for this case. i had an analog channel strip but decided to try one of the very inexpensive behringer uv1 strips with an integrated usb interface and it's been great, the gate and compressor work well, and i have a rolls audio parametric eq in the effects loop to high pass and de-essing.

since it's convenient to use the headphone out on the uv1 for the headset, i do use a limiter plugin in Rogue Amoeba Soundsource to compress the output from the conferencing software we use, it's nice being able to do that per-application since i listen to music through the headset a lot and don't want to have to take the limiter in and out.

analog headsets are so much less annoying and flexible, huge fan