Keep in mind that making your drums stick out more sometimes, if not many times, means changing more of the other sounds rather than changing the drums.
Start off with only the drums. Make the drums exactly how you want them to sound.
Now turn up the individual sounds starting with the bass. From here, whip out your eq and cut the frequencies that interfere with those perfect drums you just made if your drums are the focus. You want to keep the essence of the other sounds, yes, but you want those drums to be crisp clear.
Panning is key here as well. Move those instruments out the way of your drums. Your hats and higher percussion should really be acting more as little highlights on the overall instrumental. Pan those a little out from the center as well, leaving only the kick and snare in the middle. I also like to keep the bass in the middle as well. The higher the frequency, the more I tend to pan outward. I might keep like a lead melody with a high frequency near center only if I make sure to cut out any bass freqs that compete with the kick or bass.
Here's something else to consider...the more wetness of the effects you use on the drums, the more they are going to sit back into the mix. You want the drums as dry as possible. Use the other instruments to create the size of the room and the ambience.
Try keeping your kick 100% dry and mono. I might add a slight reverb to the snare to help a little with depth (you might hear it in the headphones, but not with open ears) . It will push the kick forward. Definitely I put a little reverb or delay on the high hats, rides, and cymbals and turn down the db. This makes those high percussion sounds act more as highlights to the beat rather than a focus that competes with the kick and snare.
Now that you have your drums properly mixed, it's safe to go in and throw on a transient shaper or any crazy plugin you want to create interesting fx. This way you are doing more sound design than actual mixing using sound design plugins (the number one mistake everyone makes in digital production). This way you can throw distortion fx on your drums, wa wa, flangers, whatever and not worry about it having a major affect on the mix levels. I still stay away from doing any of that because of the style of production I've been doing recently. It's a matter of personal taste from here. Which is great because now you are free to do whatever is in your desire and know it's still gonna bang. That's how you get "creative mixes."
btw the transient shaper I do use though is the one that came with Sonar 8. It's a 64bit plug-in (if that means anything for your setup). In my experience, the free plugins I've used on KVR are generally up to par if not better than most plugins I've collected from software I've purchased that was bundled with it (essentially free plugs that come with your software).
I truly believe that if I taught someone how, they could make perfect mixes using nothing but the free plugins found there and in other places on the internet. That goes for vsti's as well. No problem.
