Shiju,

I would listen to Dave, in what concerns the mixer choice. I tested the Mackie 1202 VLZPro, last year, in a local shop, and it seemed to be a very high quality unit.
When in a solo act, I do not use a mixer (I use the keyboard mic input). Otherwise I use my home studio digital mixer Roland VM3100Pro (20 channels, more than you need) - very good quality - or a small Folio Notepad (Spirit by Soundcraft) mixer, with 4 mic inputs. The later has a two band equalizer and has no built-in effects. It's quality is not close to Mackie's but it's quite cheap.

The price of the basic LUCAS system was the equivalent to $1000, in Europe (with some shopping around), well below your limit. Please check for the price of LUCAS 1000.

José Matias.