A touch of small room reverb is great for gluing synthesized or excessively isolated drums together so they sound like a kit.
A plate reverb is good for general use on vocals.
Halls are best for special effects where the ambience is a big part of a sound. Best use for accents or just specific parts of the song. To sound very 80s do that on percussion hits with an eighth-note pre-delay.
Stick an EQ ahead of the reverb. EQ on the way in is not the same as EQ within the reverb itself or in the return path. When you EQ the send, the reverb is cleaner because it only includes the things you want reverberated. For example, on a vocal you can cut the presence frequency (upper mids) from the send so that the reverb wraps round the vocal instead of fighting it. De-essing on the way in is well worthwhile and you can do that quite heavily. Also, you'll generally high-pass the send if the reverb doesn't have that built-in.
Most of this applies equally to echo.
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