Hi, Alan.
It's cold and rainy here, so a warm breeze is appreciated!

If you've got a method that works for you, why would you change it?
Creating a good mix is about creating a good arrangement, by giving things room to be heard and space to breathe.
You only need to work with things like EQ and compression when you haven't mixed it well in the first place. A good band "mixes itself", so to speak, by simply listening.
And this sounds good!
Hey David ...
Cold and rainy in Sacramento - can't say that too often! I lived in Bakersfield 6 years and I was almost always comfortable in the dead of winter wearing just a light jacket. Come summer - almost every day was 103 - 108 - you can only take off so many pieces of clothing without going to jail or traumatizing your neighbors.
I feel my method works pretty good for me. That's one reason I can create a decent song (in my opinion decent) in a matter of hours - no complications. It's also my belief that many folks obsess over perfection vs a really nice song. That's not me. I just want to create something that listeners might enjoy, regardless of the degree of perfection. If I hoped to sell songs to other musicians who are, by my definition, are perfection-obsessed, I'd be living in a tent and begging for food! So far, we've had 28 songs picked up for various uses. Thus, I guess my archaic system works as good as I need it to.
Fully agree with your comment that a well-put-together song will, more or less, mix itself.
But you ought to see all the work I do behind the chord input sheet! Most of the fade-ins/fade-outs, tone adjustment, manually-induced "compression", etc. are done that way. I use Audacity primarily as a way to convert my SGU to a wave file and adjust overall volume. Very occasionally I will do some extra EQ and mild compression in Audacity, but not often.
Anyway, thanks for all; the supportive comments. I appreciate all your comments.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
Alan