Amen brother.
I have very few trees at my house, but my dear old mom has neighbors with ridiculously huge cottonwoods. I spend way too much time cleaning her yard.
I too bought the plastic perforated snap-in types, from Menards. They come in black, brown, and I think green. They'd about 6" wide, so they snap into K-style aluminum or steel gutters. They've been installed about 5 or 6 years, and have saved me MANY trips up the ladder. If I have to replace 3 or 4 per season, that's no trouble to me.
Water and dirt get through, and some seeds, but for the most part, branches and leaves stay out. Have had zero trouble with icing, and her roof is black, so it heats up easily in the winter.
Edit: they do make a long contraption that fits on the end of a blower, that you can blow out your gutters (at least on the first floor) from the ground. Watched a neighbor use one of these doohickeys, and it was intriguing. If I hadn't already put the gutter guards on, I would invest in one of these.
By the way, the gutter guards I put on were around a buck per foot. The first season, just installed them on the north and west sides of the house. Went around the other two sides the following year.
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LB Plastics 4' Filtered Vinyl Gutter Cover at Menards®
These guys here. They're not perfect, but they're cheap, easily replaceable, and keep about 80 percent of the crap out. I can go up there with a hose and wash the rest out.