I would suggest going to the guitar effects section at musiciansfriend.com. A great many of the pedals offered for sale have sound sample files, so it may give you an idea what they do. Digitech.com has demos for a great many of their pedals, and more than one sample per pedal. This may also give you an idea what the various effects do. Now if I could just find a pedal that would make my playing sound like some of the samples....
Guitars: MIM Fender FSR Limited Edition Stratocaster with direct mount pickups, Schecter C-1 Plus, SX SST57 Powder Blue, Alvarez RD8 Accoustic
Amps: Line6 Spidervalve 112
Effects: Digitech Bad Monkey, Danelectro Cool Cat Chorus, GFS Delay, GFS Tuner, Behringer HB01 wah, Line6 Toneport GX, GuitarRig 3