If you can't afford bribery, whoring yourself might work...
Seriously, you obviously have a lot of interest and drive. I agree with Kaydis, get some good books and magazines and just suck all the knowlage out of them. There is a lot of good stuff here but if you want to get to the meat of things in a hurry, go to a good book store (or good music store) and pick up a few of the titles that were mentioned.
Traditionally the best way to get signed was to rehearse your ass off, play every local gig you can, then start touring regionally, and eventually the record gods may smile on you. Today with the much improved cheap recording gear there is a temptation to just throw your own studio together and record your stuff and bypass the whole touring process. However as you are starting to see it is one thing to go buy the hardware, and quite another to learn how to use it well.
Sometimes it is easier not to have to re-invent the wheel. If you have good material and your band is well rehearsed, I think you should consider buying time in someone elses studio. There are many, many small studios out there and the competition means that rates can be down right reasonable. Many of the posters on this board are these exact people, people working hard to make a living running a small studio. The trick is finding the right producer/engineer, and the best way to do that is to check out work they have done previously (and talk to some of their clients).
Of course a lot of artists do a combination of all three - gig your ass off, record their own material to work it out, then have someone else do the killer demo recording that will hopefully lead to that big break.
Just my opinion....
