In the past I have had to overdub live cymbals to a drum program and it was
about as awkward a process as I can imagine. Sit there and 'air drum' the rest
of the kit. Yikes.

I agree with the guys who are recommending to hire a good drummer. I just came
off a project where the drummer's bad time was the least of his problems. He
literally did not know how to properly hold a stick or strike a drum. What an
incredible illustration of the importance of the player. In the same room, with
the same kit, same mics and preamps I have recorded drums that kick ass. The
only difference on this project was the drummer and boy did the project suffer.
We ended up triggering kick and snare but every time I hear a hit on the hi
tom, I cringe because you can hear that he's hitting the drum near the rim:
DOING (and nowhere near the center of the head). I had to edit every one of his
tom fills to make the hits reasonably consistent in level. On the first
downbeat of EVERY chorus and verse, his kick drum hit was around 10 dB louder
than the average for the other parts of the song. Good grief. At least it was
good for my Digital Performer editing chops.

On the other side of the fence, I've also had the opportunity to work
extensively with great drummers such as Bobby Rondinelli. He's a consummate
professional, and you'd have to be an idiot to mess up the sound of his drums.
He knows how to tune them, he hits them consistently and plays like a mo-fo.
When you have that to start with, the rest of the recording process is easy.

peace
Steve La Cerra