quick hits on the firestudio....
1/ Mine is running perfectly on a Mac Pro with Cubase 4
2/ Latency is not an issue for me as I do not play stuff in realtime and can use the firestudio mixer for no latency overdubs.
3/ The Firestudio Mixer has snapshots that you can save and load very easily
I am using it with 2 ADA8000's for a really cheap (sub $1,000) 24 track in and out interface....I am really impressed.
The pre's/converters are a little brittle in the top end compared to the ad16x that I owned in the past.....but the ad16x cost $3,000 with the firwire card and had no preamps or digital outs.....
YMMV
Buddhaman
PS--I will be happy with this setup for a while I believe...