Yes, push to toggle microphone is another great use for these!
I was using the Kinesis Programmable Foot Switch 26 years ago with ps/2 connectors (later they switched to USB). You would get 3 foot switches in each unit and chain them together along with your keyboard so they only used one host port. The most similar thing I see now would be https://www.amazon.com/X-keys-Foot-Pedal-Playback-Control/dp...
It's frustrating that I can't reprogram my old foot switches since the manufacturer stopped supporting them. If buying today, I'd look for something based on open source QMK firmware like my keyboard uses. This project looks cool: https://github.com/christrotter/qmk_firmware/tree/arcboard-s...