No one is saying mic pres are irrelevant - if I'm reading this right, we are unanimously saying that there are other things that matter a great deal more. I think it's really more along the lines of us wanting to make sure you aren't disappointed if you go plunk down $1000 on a new mic pre.
Here's the question that I (and maybe everyone else responding here) has: will you even be able to tell the difference between a $30 pre, a $300 pre, and a $3000 pre?
We don't know - and I'm trying to make sure you realize that there are other areas that give you more bang for the buck, so to speak. We don't know what mics, what mic technique, what room treatment, monitoring, conversion - all of that matters way more. If you focus first on those and then come back to the pre, then bam - it's all going to be better.
Someone somewhere on the web used a great analogy - I'd like to attribute it to someone but I can't remember who said it. The idea is that your recording chain can be likened to a window - one of those windows that has many separate panes (let's use a nice number like "six" for our number of panes). You can then like each pane to a piece of gear - mic, room, treatment, converters, monitoring, technique.
The ultimate goal is to have six clear panes - thus giving you a great view into the "source", right? If any one of those panes is "dirty" (needs improvement), then the overall view is diminished accordingly. The mic pre is but one pane and, IMO, it's placement is like way up on the top left that's maybe even higher than your eye normally sees haha. The idea I'm trying to make is that, by focusing on the panes that are in your line of sight, you'll get better "bang for your buck".
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