A pre-amp is a good idea. Either that or a decent mixer with a pre-amp built in. If you ever decide to go with a condenser mic, you should get phantom power built in too.
As far as the echo unit goes, you'd be better off leaving that for mixdown.
Better to have a dry signal and use echo sparingly only when you need it.
You'd be better off with a decent compressor. You don't need really heavy compression when recording, but just enough to give you a hot signal going in.