As I am looking to upgrade ASAP I am amending an earlier post/thread w/ hopes of getting more responses. I hope this doesn't violate any rules on this cool site.

The crux of my inquirery is:

for $450 max what is the best thing I can find either new or used as far as Win/PC stability, minimal live play latency, minimal driver issues and has compatability with PC game software? I will probably never need more than 8 I/O and my desire is to give my son some decent live demo recording capabilities. When it gets serious we will go to a pro studio.

I see the MOTU 2408 mk2 systems are in or under that range but I'm nervous about all the negative PC/driver comments I have read.

I currently have the original GINA 20 bit from Event Electronics before they sold to Echo and as I said in my original post I could never get simultaneous record and control of any softsynth. I could get playback from GINA itself but not playback/output of say Native Inst B4 whilst recording w/ GINA. I tried for yrs through Event tech service, Win98, Echo tech service, Win2k and every driver update from day one. Using an additional soundblaster to control and play softsynths was the only thing that worked. With this in mind can anyone tell me if the same problem exists w/ either the Layla24 or 3G? How do the Laylas compare to the Delta 1010? I don't need mic preamp's so are the DACs in the 3G really that much better to justify the extra 100 bucks the 3G would cost over a used Layla24 w/ that in mind?