Groove Tubes 5sm- bought on clearance when GT sold its mic line to Alesis. It is still my main vocal mic on songs where I need to cut loose and rattle the rafters. I don't even know how it compares to other mics, but its still the only multi-pattern mic I've got.
I love it, really. I would say that I lucked out with all these cheap sounding mics around, but this was actually before the cheap mic boom started. So yeah, I guess I lucked out since I really had no idea what I was buying.
I couldn't afford it at the time but it has been the single most helpful upgrade of all time to my mic collection. The SM57 and AKG C1000S were doing well, but I just wasn't getting all that I needed out of them.
-Chris