Aproach to sound editing

Folks,

I am working on a rather long film project and need a bit advice on how to attack the sound portion of this effort. The actors are long gone so whatever sound I have will basically have to do. Since much of this material is all over the place sonically I am looking for a recommended approach. My immediate concern is the dialog. I know I have to level out this sound but am bit confused on the best methodology. For example should I just adjust the track levels, should I just add gain to the individual clips, or should I select the whole timeline and normalize it? What level do I normalize to? Do I EQ the whole timeline and exactly what does that mean? Of course there are unwanted hums, clicks random noises so when should I add filters to eliminate these annoyances, prior to the previously mentioned efforts or after?
I am currently using Creative Suite 6 Production Premium so my next question is how much do I do Premiere as appose to Audition? Should I just get the basic audio tracks edited and perform all the sound work in Audition?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated

Lou