Mark,
Mackie says a lot of things. If their boards sounded as good as their marketing says they do, everyone else would be out of business. They are fine for live PA work but for recording, IMO you need better pre amps unless all you want to do is make demos for yourself. Check the mic pre comparisons I posted in the Audio Projects, Critique, Streaming Forum... Kurt

There are times when the mackie preamp sound is exactly what you want, but times when you might want a different sound but with only a Mackie board are unable to achieve it. What I found is that using only stock mixing board preamps made the mixing stage really difficult, since it was hard to differentiate between instruments in the mix. That's where the variety comes in.

I'd say I'm also not a fan of the 8-channel preamp offerings of Focusrite and Presonus, not since they're poor or unusable (they're quality products) but because suffer the same lack-of-variety phenomena of the mixing board. A motley assortment of different preamps (including some very cheap and trashy ones, as well as significantly higher end ones) works better for me, I found. With the FMR-Audio RNP, the Speck and Grace 1-channel mic pres, OSA API-style reissues, and other affordable variety, you might be able to assemble a more flexible set of tools.