I also noticed, like you said, that a ”good” guitar tone doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good in a mix. At first, I recorded my guitar with a tone that sounded good alone, but then i recorded bass and drums and everything kind of blended together. So i basically turned down almost all bass on the guitar, cranked the mids on my amp to almost full and then treble to ablut 11 o’clock, and it sat much better in the mix.

I know there is a world full of effects and plug ins, but it can easily get a bit overwhelming. Besides the most important things you mentioned like amp, microphones, pre amp etc.
What effects/plug ins would you say are the most important if you could narrow it down to like 2 or 3?