Isn't controls on mics the worst UX because the wrong people are always messing with them?

You raise a good point about (even in the bad case) moving headphones around the signal chain---and damn as an (especially functional) programmer I'd like that to be able to tap arbitrary locations in data flow like that. Enough all these control-flow-based debugging tools!

> One button that engages a good EQ is much, much better than something like this

Well there's always overkill, but would one of those be worse than one of those and then, next in the signal chain, a 1-button EQ whose functionality is completely subsumed?