cornell mba

So I got an invitation to apply to Cornell's Park Fellowship program today and it really threw me for a loop. Here's why:

I've been planning on getting a PhD for quite some time, and the more I though about what kind of skills I would need for a PhD the less I wanted to get an MBA. To me the MBA is a very general professional degree that prepares you to get a job in industry...

PhD=researcher... so I started to look at specialized Master's programs that would give me lots of classes in statistics and psychology. The schools I applied to are all decent schools (but not top tier by any means) with a masters programs in Marketing Research (there are only 7 or 8 schools in the country with this major.)

So my conundrum is this - if I apply to Cornell, get accepted, and get this funding, do I go?? I am almost afraid to apply, because if I do get the funding it will be one of the most difficult decisions in my life.

Will the name brand MBA with largely irrelevent and unfocused coursework (IMHO) stand out more and get me into a PhD program over a highly focused specialized masters? (Keep in mind Cornell was one of the schools I would apply to for PhD program - my top PhD program choices right now are Ross, Stern, Cornell - of course this will probably change as my research interests develop further)

Part of my confusion is many PhD programs expect me to have the full calculus sequence as well as linear algebra. I can squeeze this in at University of Georgia or Baruch, but I don't see it happening elsewhere...

So my questions to all you PhD students on the board:

What grad degrees did you guys/gals have before applying to PhD programs?

What are your opinions on the well known MBA vs. lesser known quant heavy MS enroute to PhD?

Am I being too myopic in thinking that classes in financial accounting, entreperneurship, leadership and management will be of no use to someone who will be studying the behavioral side of marketing?

Is it better to be a big fish in small pond or vice versa? I figured that I would really be able to stand out at some of the lesser known schools and link up with a professor to work on some research... my view of cornell is that all the students there are top notch, so it would be much harder to stand out as the exceptional student and impress the pants off a professor.