I'm in the same boat. Making the transition from simple amp guitar to modeler. I've tried it before with mediocre results and went back. I still have a lot of amps, but I am giving it another go.
I've found many factory presets will do a fantastic job. A lot of them will have effects that I don't really use, so I will turn them off first for their base tone to see if I like them. I tend to go to amps that I have a lot of history with. Plexi jumped, jcm800, ac-30, super reverb. They are a great base to start with. I'm more 70's, so I'm not using that much gain. So, I will gravitate more to the Friedman BE, over the HBE tone. Less saturated maybe?
What songs are you looking to play? For eighties, there's a big difference between something like U2 and Skid Row...