Gotta agree once again with everyone else who suggested simplicity first here - don't get too far ahead with what you're trying to do.
The tools we have available now are amazing. They'll give us options that previously would have spelled the end of a mix without either re-tracking or sending to a scary good engineer to untangle and make it sound great. But at the core of it, if the basics aren't working, there's already a problem that needs to be addressed before bringing in the specialist tools.
I'd start with looking at the EQ and compression for everything at the track level first, EQ first and foremost. Don't worry too much about delay based effects or modulation or anything, just keep it simple. Get the relative balance of everything happening first, and carve out their sonic space with EQ.
Things popping out weird? Sure - time to hit the compression on each track after that. Things like vocals will definitely need it, bass too in most cases. If you're using sampled drums, you're not needing to worry so much about adding crack with slow attack times on the snare, or anything crazy like that, it's usually all done for you.
Get the balance right, then start looking at getting the space happening with reverbs, ERs, delays, chorus, etc.
Once that sounds good, THEN look at the faux mastering side of things. Save a mix recall of it all (Yay, what a killer feature!), and then strap a limiter on your master bus and give it a good crank. You'll hear immediately what's changed in the instrument balance. The width and the sonic space will stay the same but the relative levels of everything will dramatically change. Readjust again to the same places you liked in the un-smashed mix (maybe turn your master down so you're not letting the extra boost in loudness fool you into thinking something is better), and you're most of the way there. Obviously you need to take the limiter off before you export for your mastering engineer though. Expect your mix to sound terrible without it! HAHA! But that's the whole point - the mastering guy/girl will be giving it the final crush and polish and will fix that stuff.
But jumping forward and thinking you need to do that first or use any any surgical plugins to fix stuff BEFORE trying everything else will be a lesson in frustration. That's putting a coat of paint on a rusty car without fixing the holes first.
I definitely think you're on the right track with the mix already, but simple is the key and following the right order in the chain along will help you stay focussed and on track rather than getting distracted by other things that may help.
Unrelated - Danny: I'll give Clone Ensemble a shot properly again, it could be a good tool to have in the arsenal. I tried it ages ago and it was good but didn't quite give me what I was looking for as compared to doing the job for real, so I didn't spend a lot of time on it after that. (This was the free version and has long since disappeared from my system). I'll leave it there because I don't want to derail this thread but this sounds like a cool line of chat we could continue in another thread sometime.
