Welcome, skeetered! You're among friends here. Some are rank beginners, but others remember the invention of dirt. Most of us are somewhere in between.
For a one-man-band, many people need nothing more than their guitar, and get a wider variety of sounds out of it than I would have imagined. Sounds like you're looking to go a step or two beyond just tapping or harmonics or varying your picking hand placement.
Might I suggest that you look into getting a looper? It's a device that can record and play back segments of your playing, allowing you to move on to additional melodic ideas. Phil Keaggy is a master at looping, but there are a great many people who use them to lesser extent. There are several good models to look at, by Boss and others. From what you've said, I suspect that's just what you're looking for.
cotten
Here's one that was in our Classifieds a few days ago.
http://69.41.173.82/forums/showthrea...ghlight=looper Here's a thread from a while back that you might enjoy:
http://69.41.173.82/forums/showthrea...ghlight=looper Of course, you can type in "looper" into our Search function and find a number of other threads on the subject, if you like. You don't have to - we certainly don't mind discussing them again.