yeah - I think Lugia was expecting this to be a pre-buying thread as so many are! - as a newbie there's no point putting discontinued modules in your want to buy
re utilitties: there are utilities and utilities
personally I do not count Maths or disting as utility modules - they are both extremely useful (I have both - well a newer Maths)
when I talk about utilities I mean simple modules that can modify, merge and multiply electrical signals - not generate them - and not really audio effects
I would look at (and yes you can patch some of these with Maths or select an algorithm in disting, but then that's used!) waveshapers/folders, matrix mixers, sequential switches, attenuators, attenuverters, offset, basic mixers, more vcas - veils, perhaps and then go on to discover more types of utility - maybe buy some to use with audio - I'd say 30-50% of a rack should be modulation and utilities - to some extent the more utilities you have the fewer modulation sources you need, but the more complex your modulation will be - a balancing act obviously
"some of the best base-level info to remember can be found in Jim's sigfile" @Lugia
Utility modules are the dull polish that makes the shiny modules actually shine!!!
sound sources < sound modifiers < modulation sources < utilities