Push it.. it's OK to light up often (not constantly). The JoeMeek sounds better when driven. Even though I read that in the manual, (it's in there) it still took a while for me to grasp that concept.
Same here, but I was rewarded when I trusted the compressor to bring my drum mic signal under control... seemed like the added gain gave the compressor and EQ more to work with, and the output knob seems to serve only to attenuate the outrageous gain of the unit