Way back in the day when I first started mixing, I used to cheat a little bit on tracks to get a decent sound: compression, visual parametric EQ, then I would finish the track off with something like Vitamin, which has a plethora of presets -- for like everything -- that you can tweak a little bit to your liking.

I was so naive. I looked at my minimalistic Puig-like EQs with contempt. I thought "when am I ever going to use these?" Well, much sooner than I thought. I subbed out Vitamin (or whatever) with a Pultec EQH-2 and Pultec MEQ-5. Now, I was getting tracks that sounded way better than if they went through Vitamin. Also, it really forces you to use your ears unlike the visual parametric EQs. Heck, sometimes I even add a little shelving after that if it improves the sound.

In order to EQ to the mix and not the particular instrument, voice, etc, I would raise only the gain of the track I was working on just a little bit just to make sure everything still fit in the mix.

What I've found over the years is that a suite for "X" (vocals, drums, mix bus, whatever) can't hold a candle to using the individual plugins themselves. Sure, it's not as easy in the beginning, but you'll get the hang of it before you know it -- and save money by not needing to buy the latest "greatest" processor for whatever (e.g., vocals).

I hope that helps someone!