I am a returning student (b.s. in psych) now working on pre-pharm classes. What kind of research/ experience should I be doing? Should I really be looking into becoming a pharm tech?

Getting experience in a pharmacy does help in the application process. If you can't find that, try looking to work in a research lab.

any kind of pharmacy experience is good but by no means required. i didn't have any kind of pharmacy experience before my interviews, although i did get a pharm. tech job after interviewing. i also worked in a research lab before i applied. i didn't really do much research and usually just assisted the scientists with various clerical tasks, pulling research papers, chemical preparations, etc. but working in a lab did help tremendously in getting good letters of recommendation. bottom line is, if you have a decent gpa, good pcat scores and a healthy number of extra curriculars you'll be fine.