I follow the Recording Revolution blog and have watched the introductory videos. VERY useful. What's great about it is he focuses on getting things done. Starting with presets is fine. Using whatever gear you have on hand is fine. Using the built in stock plug-ins is not only fine, but encouraged.

He's very practical in his approach and gets outstanding results.

It has definitely helped me create better mixes and recordings.

Jeff has some great suggestions too. When "duplicating" guitar tracks, I like to play the same or similar part with a different guitar, or at least with a different amp. So not only is it that you can't play the same thing EXACTLY the same each time, which adds its own interest, your tone will be different. It creates a lot of interest in the final track.