This is just me.
If it has drums and/or percs, I make sure those sound great first. Open sounding, lots of overtones, just the right verb. I make my home records around the sound of the drums. Maybe because most of the really bad sounding records I've heard had really bad drums.
Admittedly I program my drums because I can't afford to record live, but you still have to shape the sound depending on the track. Really helpful though coz they sound pretty nice out of the box.
I mix the bass to that, then LCR the hell out of every other instrument. If one section of the song starts to sound lopsided (because of LCR), I fill the anemic channel with another instrument with some other lines. After that I bring in the vocals and I decide whether I'd like that to sit back in the mix or roast like a marshmallow over a campfire. Not a fan of really up front vocals that really shine (I don't know why though).
I'm not good at using reverbs, so I only use it on drums/percs, vocals, synths, and acoustic instruments. Electric guitars and basses are definitely dry. Cut the frequencies I don't like using EQ. If I have to boost something, it's usually coz I have crap sounding gear, so I use that BBE Sonic Maximizer thing instead of EQ. I like timed delays for vocals (half note or dotted eighth).
Oh, and don't forget to record background noise!