For me a good amp means Marshall or Fender, I love Fenders clean sounds... also a good multi-effect will give you good distortion, but you can't go wrong if you choose a Boss distortion pedal.. I think for the Racer X & 80's sounds, a Boss DS-1 or DS-2 + a good amp will be good enough...

For other effects, the most important are : reverb, delay , chorus & noise gate .. and of course the most important effect after the distortion is a wah-pedal
Also you may like to have: compressors, limiters, flanger,phaser, harmonizer,whamy,vibrato,auto-wah,etc... but these aren't essential for everybody.

Anyway, I recomend a good Multi-effect, but their only disadvantage is no matter how good they are, I've never heard a good wah-pedal from a multi-effect ..