I make it easy on myself as I rarely ever have more than 5-6 tracks involved in my final mix. At one point I may have 7-8 or more generations in my DAW of the same Realtrack but that is for cutting and splicing up to a single track that will be used in the final mix. But, I certainly think the start with the vocal approach makes very good sense. And, as alluded, to I keep reference songs that are my favorite mixes of the genre that I'm working with. I try to "live with" them for a while before starting the mix.