I'm open to any help/ideas anyone can throw at me.

Ha, I just saw this now. Reminds me of me in my early days. The ol' dangle-phone technique.

I would use a piece of your budget on mic stands. 3 strategically placed microphones can give you a much more desired result than 8 mics in good enough format. There's probably a fair amount of phasing going on in your drum sound making the cymbals go "whee-ooo-whee-ooo"

Fuck you, superchum.