Yeah, by dropping some instruments to the back or moving some to the front, you create the feeling of a room and giving it a lot of depth. Some vst instruments offer you to mix with different microphone positions, but if you don't have that option, there's vsts like Tverb/Berlin Studio/ocean way studios etc., that let you mess with the dry/wet signals. That can sometimes work much better than adding reverb, since it preserves the clarity and if you want, you can still slap the reverb on top in the end.
I'm not sure, how it's handled in rock music. What works for me is again placing the instruments in the room in different positions. I use iZotopes Ozone Imager for that, it's free, I use that on almost every instrument to place it in the mix and in the end I fix the frequency issues, for example low-end heavy stuff are centered and instruments with higher frequencies can be stereo. And if it still doesn't work, I try to sidechain the bass or work with layering kickdrums to seperate low and high frequencies.
I have that too, at 3 am it's still insane and I wake up at 12 to find out it wasn't insane at all haha