The vision:

I will play to a click track emanating from a DAW. The DAW will be aware of a linear movement forwards through time (basically, a playhead moving through the session).

It seems fully automated consoles are in short numbers. I'm just poking around thinking of the best studio solution for my needs. I've never been a huge fan of Protools, mostly because the information is very vague. From what I've read you need the HD cards, HD192's (only 16 channels a peice) A/D converters and a control surface.