I always have the limiters engaged on my recorders, no matter what I'm recording. But, it is absolutely essential with the loud stuff (guns, explos, jet bikes, car drops, etc). The hardest thing about recording a loud source is that you can't monitor while you record. Well, you can monitor, but you won't hear it well enough to get a feel for the recordings. Playback after takes is essential, so that you know what adjustments to make.

I find that if your recordings are distorting, the first thing to change is your mic placement. Move the mic further away or point it away from the source. Likewise, if you are not getting enough level, move your stuff closer. Also realize that some mics just won't like a particular source, so don't be afraid to swap mics out. Of course, you still need to understand proper gain settings, your mic pres should not be jacked up all the way, nor should they be turned down to near zero. Mic pads are also a good thing to have around.

Also, I tend to record loud stuff pretty hot, especially the transient stuff.

Rene layed this out fantastically, and I've never thought of purposefully distorting a cheap mic before—brilliant!

The equivalent technique I've always used is to record 1 or 2 additional channels with the mic medium-close to the source: far enough to capture the entire source evenly but close enough that the reverb or space doesn't take over. In post, run those channels through a compressor/limiter with aggressive settings (very fast attack, fast release). IMO, it's particularly fantastic with a nice analog compressor like an 1176, but you can use any plugin compressor too (PSP's vintagewarmer works nicely). Plugin compressors have the advantage that they often have extremely-fast attack times. The result is an alternative kind of distortion that you can run soft or loud in the mix to add harmonics and body to a loud sound. I learned this technique during school when we recorded/mixed drums.

I agree also that getting a reverb recording is CRUCIAL. Adding reverb in post might work, but keep in mind that reverb processors only process what you send them, and what you would be sending them is a close-up recording that might not fully capture the power of the source sound. It's ALWAYS better to set up additional channels to record the actual interaction with the recording space, even if you are recording in the open outdoors.

Whoops! I think that there might be a little fundamental misunderstanding in my personal recording theory!

I am about this RedSonic01's sentence:

Some like to record with really high gain, bouncing the transients off the limiter.

I always thought, that the only purpose of gain in portable recorders was the ability to change the monitor level for the comfortable listening. I mean, I thought that if you took two the same recorders and record the same sound (not such a loud sound that will cause the clipping) but with different gain level and later in DAW normalize those two recordings, you would receive identical sounds. Is this right? Or there is something more about microphone gain?