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My studio is finally for real... ! advice?

So I haven't posted here in a while now. I've been mainly working with my band and getting my engineering jobs going which is finally happening. I am almost done with my new rooms measuring 26 x 15' with 10' ceiling (band room) and a 12.5 x 15' with 11' ceiling control room. I just bought a 32 channel Sony MXP3036 with ALL the tuchels and wiring for the huge patchbay for $7500!

Help me choose

I'm mostly recording hip hop vocals. I have a M-Audio omni i/o. I want to buy a new mic and a new mic preamp. I am looking at
1. RNP/RNC 2.Summit 2BA-221 3.Grace 101 .. One of these three with one of these mics:
a. AT 4040 or 4050
b. SP C3
c. SP B3 or b1
d. RODE NTK

stereo compression

Recently, I've been messing around with compression on my drum submix. I'm using a dual mono compressor, it seems to me that the best way to preserve the stereo image is to; set both channels exactly the same and key one side on both channels, i.e. left side straight signal and the right side listens to the left signal...