Glad you found a good solution!

I've talked about this a few times. If the compressor is after your A/D it is sort of pointless unless you just like to hear compression. It certainly is not going to stop your A/D from cliping. For this you do need a "real" compressor. 
For a long while I used the compressor on my Yamaha o1v digital mixer for vocals and bass.. 
It certainly seemed to work fine but one day I woke up and realized all it was doing is preventing clipping of the output.. The meter in Sonar was safe from going red..but.. I could still clip the input and the A/D, so I stopped using it and bought the Joe Meek. 

@CactusMusic
 
I have an external compressor too, and I wanted to take a second to describe how I usually use it. It's a 2 channel 162SL DBX compressor which has a stereo/linked channel mode.
 
At first, I used it in the direct chain to enable me to get a fairly good line level without clipping. This is what you are describing. Mic > pre amp > compressor > Interface AD converter.
 
Now, unless I'm using 14 or more channels in the recording, I usually record the microphones directly to the interface (A/D D/A converter). This gives me as pure a capture as I can get so I can work with it after the fact.
 
Sometimes, I send from the interface to the compressor and return the compressor to the interface on a second channel from the first. This gives me both the compressed and uncompressed signals to work with. I can then let the musicians monitor the compressed sound. I can even mix the compressed and uncompressed sounds for a NY Style compression.
 
I almost always use EQ and Compression for what I send to the mains/PA system. The RME UCX has EQ and compression for each input channel and each output channel as well as loopback. This means, I really don't need my external compressor. It also means that I can record what I send to the mains so I can later hear what my mix sounded like live.
 
When I record a whole lot of tracks, it is nice to have a final degree of compression that is going to the mains that I have physical nobs for. I can grab the gain nob and bring it up and down for example to keep it properly loaded into the compressor when the song gets quieter. So, in this case, I use my compressor in stereo mode on the Left and Right channels of the master outs.

I too will sometimes just plug right into the interface and then keep the level on the low side. I find the Focusrite  pre amps are way to picky about levels, my Tascam interface is easier to dial in a hot signal. The little circle meter does not give you enough information. So that's why I like having the Joe Meek. 
For vocals I don't compress with it, I use it to stop overs. I get a better track out of the deal 
It colours the sound in a nice way too which is the whole point of having a different pre amps. 
For Bass I do compress the signal depending on the style of music. The Joe Meek has a wide pallet of tone control and I'm one of those who likes to record the sound I'm after first off as opossed to mucking about later. 

Cactus Music
I too will sometimes just plug right into the interface and then keep the level on the low side. I find the Focusrite  pre amps are way to picky about levels, my Tascam interface is easier to dial in a hot signal. The little circle meter does not give you enough information. So that's why I like having the Joe Meek. 
For vocals I don't compress with it, I use it to stop overs. I get a better track out of the deal 
It colours the sound in a nice way too which is the whole point of having a different pre amps. 
For Bass I do compress the signal depending on the style of music. The Joe Meek has a wide pallet of tone control and I'm one of those who likes to record the sound I'm after first off as opossed to mucking about later. 

this is definitely a tangent, but I completely agree with you and actually I don't understand the immense popularity of the Focusrite units due to the gain knobs on the units being so "picky."  I bought one to be a backup unit when my MOTU was "in the shop" and immediately sent it back because of the gain knob not being smooth in the gain.  there's a big "jump" in gain with a very small movement in the knob at one place and it's difficult to get a balance.  I hated that and bought a presonus instead.