DEFINITELY go with the RME sound cards. Sooooo much better on ALL counts.
As to the routing... you know you are right. There is no way to do what you suggest. It would actually be a cool addition. I will suggest to them. Another thing I have long wished it would do is an internal sum of inputs. In otherwords, I would like to be able to sum inputs 1, 2,3 and 4 to track 10 or whatever. I often want multi mics on say.... a guitar amp, but I want to commit and only use one track. Saves me a lot of time on the back end. Right now I have to have an external mixer to do that. :( Another suggestion I need to make... lol.
