[theReal]

- AUDIO TECHNICA ATR-55 Condenser Shotgun Mic ~ $60 it's mono but comes with a cam mount and a pole mount. Works well for voice. I made a stand from a block of wood. My cam mic is better but ... um ... on the cam.

Usually all pro mics are mono (stereo is only worth the effort when you have a real elaborate stereo setup, the "stereo" mics on camcorders are in that sense not a real stereo setup). But you got a mic for 60$ and the camcorder's mic is still better? Then I guess you paid too much for that audio technica thingy...
I'm not an expert for microphones, but a colleague recently gave me a 60€ electret condenser microphone to test in the field. It had two switchable characteristics (don't know what the characteristics are called in English, one was broad, like a stage mic, the other was "aimed" like a film mic). The mic was pretty good - not as good as a 300€ Sennheiser electret condenser mic, but definitely better than any mic from an amateur camcorder.
60€, that's something like 70$ at most! If you're interested, I'll ask my colleague what brand and type it was.

I'm also interested in quick setups. If I film my kids ... I don't really have too much time for white balance, lenses, filters, exposure, focus, framing, ... how do you do it fast ?

White balance: use presets (indoor/outdoor). Works quite well in almost all situations.

Focus: if your camcorder supports quick switching between auto and manual then zoom in on auto focus until it's focussed, then switch to manual, zoom back and shoot (or leave at auto focus - with consumer camcorders, even with very good ones like Panasonic DVX100 AE or Canon XL1/2, it's very hard to focus manually because they don't have a real mechanical focus wheel. It's almost impossible when you have to be quick). However, as long as you're open (wide angle, not zoomed) you don't need to pull focus anyways (depending on lens, exposure and chip size - but chips are so small on consumer camcorders that usually everything's in focus unless you zoom in on something or unless you come into makro-range)

Exposure: Set to auto and see what you get, then switch to manual and start shooting. If you have a person as a main character in the scene, zoom in on the face and let the auto exposure do its job, then set to manual and zoom back --> the face will now be lit correctly, no matter if there's backlight or anything. This is not 100% fool-proof - you'll have to test your camcorder a little and see how good its auto-exposure works.
Only re-adjust the exposure during a scene when really necessary. One exposure for a scene looks much more professional. If you really need to re-adjust (like when panning from very bright to very dark) then leave the auto exposure on (manual adjustment on consumer camcorders without a real mechanical exposure wheel never looks good...)

Another important point: LIGHTING
Most camcorders are advertised that they can record with only 1 Lux. They can, but they use a lot of digital gain, which looks cheap and grainy. Use additional lights when there's no daylight! A soft (diffused) video light (20-30W or more) very much improves your pictures (it eliminates shadows in people's faces).
Also one or two 800-1000W halogen lamps (cheap ones are ok) pointed to the ceiling will extremely improve your shots inside rooms.

Framing: it's up to you... Even with the worst camcorder you can do very good. If you're ambiguous you might be interested in reading "Visualizing from Concept to Screen" by Steven D. Katz

Lenses: you can't change anything quickly here - and quite frankly I'm not a fan of cheap wide-angle adapters. A real wide angle adapter has almost no blur at all - there are some available for the better amateur camcorders which are ok, but definitely not for 50 or 100$ ...
If you don't want to spend much more, better don't use any (just my personal opinion - if you like the blurry look then go ahead )

Filters: Outdoors, an UV filter can be helpsome (you'll get better contrast). Also an ND filter would be good. ND means "Neutral Density", it's basically a grey filter that reduces the amount of light which goes through your lens (i.e. with an "1/64 ND" filter only 1/64 of the light will go through). Pro camcorders always have switchable ND filters while amateur camcorders usually just increase their shutter speed when there's too much light. Increased shutter speed makes your pictures look different, very sharp even in fast movement. This might sometimes be wanted, but most of the time it's not and the pictures look much better (and more consistent) when the amount of light is reduced through an ND filter.

Hope this helps a little - there's so much more to tell, I tried to keep to the most important things

- Olympus WS-200S 128MB Digital Voice Recorder ~ $90 and well worth it. I can record up to 4hrs off the cam. I set it up and let it run. Sometimes those comments come when the cam is off. I can also hook up my mic and record sound seperate from the cam

That's a pretty good idea! Could be useful for documentary kind of stuff (however it's only suitable for private use because you trick people into believing that they're not being recorded...)