without me trawling through the pages of add-ons with basically no idea of what im looking for can someone point me in the right direction of the must have add-ons.

cheers

textures - if you have a fast pc look at the textures add on page for custom textures (ie new steering wheels, brake disc/calipers, lights, grills, skys menus etc)
Pit-Spotter - says if someone is beside you (ie i drive on your left side, it says "Left Side" when i go it says "Clear")
Momo Leds - if you have a momo wheel it lets you program the lights on it to do stuff
LFS manager/mates@track/browse for speed - server browsers/friends list
Replay analysers like Analyze for speed let you compare replays and telemtry, also lets you see your lines and speeds and compares it to another replay (ie WR)

exactly what im after, especially liking the sound of the replay analyser. nice 1

Quote from xxxrated :

exactly what im after, especially liking the sound of the replay analyser. nice 1

yeah, i use analyze for speed for lines, and then F1 Perf view for stuff like how long we spent at diff positions of the throttle (in %, full, none or inbetween) gear changes etc, its very useful

http://www.liveforspeed.net/?page=analysers