interesting problem need to upgrade could use some help

[doulos]

hello fellow gearslutz I have a few problems and need to upgrade my studio and I could use your help. First let me give you guys a list of what I do have and what Im looking for and perhaps you can help me from there I have two setups really and need to have a better work flow between them some how thats one of many problems heres my set ups

Laptop setup

toshiba 1.8ghz with 504mb in ram
120gig usb drive
standard sound card
m audio 02 midi controller
acid 4.0 vegas 4.0
a ton of samples and vst instruments
like 75 vstis a lot of freebees and 50 gigs of samples
plug ins all the standard ones and an old waves native pack
some cakewalk things like the room emulator guitar amp and tape plugins

the desktop
2.8ghz p4 1gig of ram
dual 80 gig drives
with a digi 001

console
tascam dm24 digital board 24 in 48 out
korg 1686c old digital mixer

monitors
mackie hr624s
alesis point 7 with sampson 180 watt amp

outboard "laffs"
art tube mp
presonus blue tube cheap 2 channel
presonus blue max compressor
se pr8 8 channel preamp cheap drum pre
Antares mic modler "yep the hardware version"
digitech studio s100 reverb
behringer tube eq 2 channel and 9024 6 band compressor
which I like better then waves c4 honestly

guitar
crate practice amp
line 6 pod 2.0
korg 4 channel distortion pedal

synths and drum machines

roland sh-32 analog modeled synth
alesis sr 16
yamaha ry8
korg electribe er 1 mk2

mics
sm57 2
nady drum mics 7
rode nt5s stereo pair
akg c1000s c2000b c3000
mxl v69 tube mic

ok so now the fun stuff I once along time ago did a record at a university with a old setup fostex 16 track 1/2 tape deck mackie 32 8buss transfered to my 001 with a digimax and mixed in the box it sounded great and I can't get that sound out of my head. Tt seemed to put a staple to whatever was recorded there and I miss that sound, but I don't want to deal with the exspense of tape and maitance but want a warmer front end then I have now in my cold no outboard digital world. I hate the converters on the 001 when I got the tascam dm 24 I sent the mix out the adats to the mixer and the mix was night and day diffrent. I think it has to do with the poor clock on the 001 more then the converters but the stereo image was alot better and the vocals and things seated better in the mix the stereo image was also wider overal huge improment but I really like the work flow in protools using my mixer as a hui emulator flipping a switch and sending all the outs to the dm24 is pretty cool with better converters it would be ideal

so I think the 001 is my weak link I would like to mix in a daw send it out to a warm front end for the dm24 and bounce down from there avoiding the 001 summing and poor clock and keeping the automation of whatever daw Im using and adding the panning automation from my dm24 and then bouncing down to something like a masterlink kind of a semi console sound, but I want to keep panning automation is this possible on a budget? The most I can do is $3,000 and it will be my only upgrade for along time I know my way around electronics and can solder and things I don't mind getting dirty to save some money

workflow problem
I see one of two options another type of interface with rewire to add my vstisin my daw mix or a better sound card on the laptop and just use the laptop like a synth box and plug in to the desktop daw with a stereo channel not sure which is better