all good points, but heres one that hampered my development for years, dont be afraid to sound good. get a hq sample of a fat break, stick some overdrive on it, an exciter and a transient designer, loop it to BPM and that will be, within all probability, a good drum sound. then start moving the hits around a little, making new patterns or variations as you go along. then get a big old rompler and make a string arrangement. 4 long chords, with a lead melody on top. all just straight out the synth. the a sub bassline to go with that and you have a pretty fuckin good sound going on. everything doesnt have to be totally complicated and difficult and hatefully mysterious and unlearnable.
i refused to do any of these things and stubborn as a donkey i had to make all my sounds myself. in cooledit (nowadays known as audition) and the built in sampler of modplug and pretty soon fruity. im a fruity user. its had a good effect, in a way, it lead to a pretty unique sound and
sure it taught me how to make some pretty weird stuff, but it didnt sound good or like proper music until i dared to just write music.
which is what you should focus on, and not compressor settings and bit rates. you gear list looks just fine btw. the most important thing is a good computer, a good sound interface, good monitors and a midi controller.
when it comes to vstis who knows, massive is really popular but i think it sounds shit. i think camel 5000 is dope for textures pads and strings and leads, and i think distorting saw waves is good for basses. also, we been into a predominantly jazzy sound lately, so lots of samples from charlie mingus and old 60s film soundtracks, and tommys mother even plays the double bass so thats totaly awesome.
IRs are pretty cool and bootsy plugs are free. i would never use a commercial plug, freeware or stock when it comes to effects.
then when it comes to hardware effects like compressors amps flangers, whatever, just be sure you know why youre buying it, and if there really isnt anything that does the job quicker cheaper easier and better, like a valve amp for dist, for example? desk gain into cassette is much better imo. and dont worry about that all new desks are digital at heart, desk gain is still badman murda.