If I rant I apologize ahead of time. As far as placement, it really depends on what sound your looking for, a good rule to follow is the closer the mic to the cabinet the more "in your face" it will be. The farther away you get, the sound gets airy. For placement on the speaker, each speaker will have a sweet spot, it really takes patience to find it. Its nice if you have someone to help you by moving the mic an inch at a time and changing the angle towards the cone.

Here are a few examples of sessions I have done. For a death metal band I put the mic about 3 inches away at a 45 degree angle to the cone of the speaker and to control the low end to make it really punch, I put the cabinet facing a corner, adjusting the distance to the corner really helped to add the controlled low end that I needed. For a blues session, I used a long narrow hallway, put a Shure 57 right on the speaker for presence. (3 in away ) but then I had a Cad 100 about 9 feet away picking up the natural reverb of the room. If the client wanted the sound a little more in your face then I just backed off the Cad 100 fader.

Another nice technique is to experiment with panning of the different tracks, just becareful of phase issues.

As far as mics, the Shure 57 is always a good starting point, Cad E100, M147 Neuman, and Beyerdynamic M88 are all great choices, but there are so many.

As far as mic pres, you will just not believe the difference a good mic pre will make, the pres on a mackie board or behringer board may seem ok until you get your hands on a nicer board, if you want just a nice preamp, Avalon is prosumer but better than most at that price range. I dont like presonas.

again sorry to babble.... hope this helps