great little read there krushing... I posted a mixing a mastering thread that says a lot of the same things...
for me I do a little stereo enhancement(on busses), and the master strip really only has a limiter, a multiband eq for absolute highs and lows nothing else, and maybe depending on the sound I want vintage warmer. I know... but I don't have an analogue mixing desk so I try to add a little bit of warm, and it's only on very minimal bit of saturation.. Most stuff can/should be taken care of prior to any of that stuff..
The room/monitoring matters the most... which I'm in the process of sorting out now...