Quick Background - i recorded some "demos" for my band in our practice
space on a 16track DAW - Some great gigs and a few lucky breaks laters
they were picked up for independent release.

Thats the good news. The bad news is I am primarily a musician with
little technical background in recording and engineering. But several
pricey attempts at working w/ established engineers and producers have
not lived up to expectations, so everyone agrees that i should begin
working on the followup.

Anyway, we were able to purchase a dual processor G4, Protools digi002,
some mediocre preamps and 2 condensor mics. But as people are
expecting slightly higher production quality on 2nd release, i am
running into a few problems so far.

1 - The stock plug-inns on 002 - is it just me or do they sound like
****? I am not crazy about the compression, the EQ sounds a bit harsh
to me, and the reverb especially makes everything sound like a Don
Henley record from 1985 (...and thats a bad thing) - My one good preamp
is a Joe Meek VC1Q and i have an RNC - i used to run every channel
through those to do EQ and compression and rerecord them when i was on
a Roland 1680, but there has to be an easier way now that i am on
protools.

My question is - are there good plug ins for reverb, compression, and
EQ? Or do plug-ins in general sound like **** compared to the outboard
gear they were desinged to emulate? We can't really break the bank,
but we have about 2500 more for a recording budget.

Our sound is basically like the Shins - we like lush, layered
production, bright and clean guitars, up front, melodic vocals. I tend
to absolutely obliterate the overhead mics of the drums w/ compression
so it sounds like Albini / Flaming Lips drums. I also compress the
vocals quite a bit. Any good leads?

Also - I need several channels of good preamp - i have heard good
things about Sytek - any other suggestions for pres under $1,000? They
don't have to be super clean - we love the Velvet Underground so
anything that would give it a little "vintage flavor" would be nice -
so far my protools recordings (mostly through a Digimax LT) have
sounded a little too clean for our tastes.

So, again - recommendations for Plug ins and Preamps are appreciated.
Thanks so much for your help!