the sounds i can just drop in mid files for ring tones and is there anyway of getting mp3s to convert into the right format?

Not easily, if at all. MID (or, in fact, MIDI) files are the computing equivalent of sheet music. They're basically a list of "play a D, then an E, then a cymbal hit...".

MP3 files on the other hand, store the resulting waveform.

Converting from MP3 to MID is hard. It's like listening to a symphony orchestra and trying to write out the sheet music that they used.

Now, why doesn't the phone just allow MP3 ring-tones? At the very least, it ought to allow WAV ring-tones.