Voice recognition gummed up!

[pointy_ears]

I know that similar questions have been posted before, but I haven't found exactly the answer I need for my situation.
Any time that I try to use voice entry on my phone, instead of letting me say something, it pops up a dialog complaining that it can't log in to ***@gmail.com ("***@gmail.com" being the original email address of the person who gave me the phone, and whose email password I don't know).
When I go to Settings > Accounts and Sync to try to delete that email account, so that my phone will stop trying to connect to it -- I'm sure that this next part will come as no surprise to you -- the phone says that "this account is required by some applications." Now, I've gone to every appication I can think of and pointed it to a different email address.
I have seen people saying that there is absolutely no option to delete that account other than to do a backup of the phone and reset to factory settings. I've seen other people talk about a sure-fire solution that depends upon the phone being "rooted" -- I have no idea what that means.
So...could somebody please tell me how to do one of three things: either A) how to figure out what applications require this account, so that I can redirect them and delete it normally; B) how to delete the account by force; or C) how to make voice recognition stop trying to connect to this account (I really don't mind it still being on the phone)?
Please, I just want to use my phone's basic features!
Key info:
- Phone: Samsung Infuse (SGH-I997)
- Firmware Version: 2.2.1
- I do have another gmail account registered on the phone.
- I have tried to sign out of Talk, but when I try to open it I get "Sign-in unsuccessful".
- I have tried Settings > Manage Apps > GMail > Clear Data

 

[friedtators]

Its part of android security that you are trying to overcome. It sounds like you have some apps pointing to your phone. The surefire and correct solution should be a reset/wipe. Things will work better. Kies will back up pictures and stuff. Its painless just time perfecting the setup

 

[pointy_ears]

Yes, I know I have some apps pointing; as I said, the phone itself told me that. The question that I am asking of those who are true experts is whether there is any way of discovering what apps are doing the pointing, so that I can make them point somewhere else. It's all well and good for you to refer to the unnecessary loss of time as "painless," but I'd like to avoid it if in any way possible.