I have been searching for the trade secret on mixing vocals in pop/rock tracks.
I mixdown on my mackie 24x8.
There are no real trade secrets, to be honest. It comes down to a good vocalist in a good space singing into a good mic hooked into a good preamp. Then apply a little (not a lot, usually) compression - if required - during mixing to even out the singer's dynamics a bit (not so much as to take the emotion out of the dynamics, though.)
The questions I would have about your chain - assuming you have a good vocalist who can both sing well and know how to work the mic - would be the mic selection, the recording space and the the preamps.
You say you have good mics. That's a great first step. The only thing I'd recommend there is to take some time to work out which mics work best for which voclists. No two vocalist/mic combinations are necessarily the same. The timbre and feel of one person's voice and style may work best through an RE-20 whil another may shine best through
a GT60. If you're not already doing so, take the time to do a soundcheck through multiple mics and see what works best for your vocalist.
As far as recording space, are you alive or dead? Vocal booth or basement, and so on. If you have a really good sounding space, use it. If not maybe try dead but use a very high quality verb.
The only reason I quoted you on your use of the 24.8 is that, while it's a capable mixer, it's mic pres just plain don't compare to what the Big Boys are using for the vocals you're hearing. You might want to consider a "gold channel" or two for stuff like vocals or acoustic instruments that consists of a fairly top shelf preamp and converter that bypasses your 24.8. Not only will this lift a veil off you vocals, but it can also give you a channel or wo that could also be used just to mix in a different sound than all 24.8 all the time.
HTH,
G.