Base coats - advice please!

[eleanorjane]

So, as I'm getting a bit more serious about the whole polish thing (because I've never been one to do something casually when I can throw myself into it with ridiculous obsession) I've been trying to be kind to my nails and use a base coat. For the moment I'm just using Revlon Firma-Nail, a dual-purpose base and top coat, but I was wondering if there was something better out there. I've got some Seche Vite winging its way to me as a top coat, but there doesn't seem to be a universally-beloved base coat in the same way.

I've got slightly ridgey nails, though I don't know if they're ridged enough to warrant a ridge-filler base coat (or even how effective they are), and a number of my polishes seem to stain so I'm looking for something that will protect against staining.

Any advice, tips, experience to share?