You don't want a plug-in, you want a set of ears. Bouldersoundguy summed it up - it's like mastering an album. The aim is NOT to squeeze every drop out of the system and have the limiter squash everything at the top end. That sounds dreadful. It's not even compression. If you are playing music tracks that have already been mastered, you do not want to squash the some more. On a typical CD album, you don't have every track the same level. The loud thrashing songs may well be loud, but the ballad in between will be quieter. Radio 3 and Classic FM both play classical music. The purists complain that Classic FM has a volume range of between f and fff, while radio 3 foes from pp to fff - which is much better on the ears, better for realism and rotten for listening in the car.
I think you're getting far to fixated on chasing the dB. When I use a limiter, it's for catching those stray transients, not for brick wall limiting 0 which is a mega blunt tool for replacing common sense.
In all honesty, you sit at the desk, you have a fader for your voice and a fader for the track, and you prod them. The quiet track gets a little push - but if you make a quiet track the same volume as a busy track it is wrong. A track with a solo voice and one guitar should not be the same volume as a 5 piece thrash metal band. If you adjust both to the same level on the meter, they will never match.
This is why meter ballistics are important. The BBC have a selection of files - have a read of this
BBC Academy - Technology - Why are trails and voice overs so loud? How I was taught.
What you were talking about is maximising loudness, as in making everything sound loud. Making everything sound dreadful is my view of this. Most radio stations use a device called an Optimod - a radio designed compressed/limiter/dynamics controller. A very clever gadget that allows you to be Radio 3, Classic FM, or total mayhem - depending on what you want to do.
You could get a behringer compressor/limiter and turn the knobs up until the red light almost comes on, and the output level will be pinned at almost FS, all the time. It sounds rubbish - nasty, horrible and unpleasant.