Newbie Needs Advice!, software/hardware setup can't decide Options

[mook noodler]

First of all, Hello! I've been looking around in here for about 3 hours now and I'm really impressed. This is one of the best forums I've been to and seems to be the most helpful. Now that my nose is well browned...

here's my situation: (and I don't mean to repeat other topics but there's so many that I'm overwhelmed!!!) I've been recording music for the past 3 years or so on a PC with Cakewalk and Cakewalk Sonar. I like Sonar, but I got so sick of PCs that I went and got myself a PowerMac dual1.25 G4 with OSX. Now I needs a new setup. I record guitar, bass, vocals, and keyboard and drum machine. I have a Midisport 4x4 for midi, but I'm definitely not a midi whiz. I also have several outboard effects (delay, compression, etc) that I like to use.

At first I leaned toward the Digi 001 cuz of all the I/O's, but this forum has me thinking Logic or Cubase, which leaves me pretty confused about a hardware interface. I don't think I need a mixer type thing (already have a mixer), but I'd like something with several I/O's for sending tracks to outboard effects, and I'd really like a breakout box. I just need basic plug-ins but would like to be able to add more later. Softsynths would be cool too.

Hope I didn't go over the top w/ details. Any advice/input would be greatly appreciated, and I thank you all in advance! PS: my price range is about $1200.

[manexmachina]

I wonder if this is what's taking them so long! haha

I'm pretty sure what is taking DP so long is this:

1. they're rewriting from scratch. It's just a hunch and I'd love to know the truth - but for such an incredibly mac-centric application (one that actually USED the balloon features), I would imagine these programmers would want to write their code at the core level. I spoke to the author of another program who upgraded to OSX and he commented that he took the short cut (writing at a higher level), but thought perhaps other programmers would want to rewrite from scratch.

2. if this is not the case, I'd say that they are mostly likely using all their resources focused on the MACH5 because they know that this will be a cross-platform money maker - so from an economic point of view, they'll want to keep it their number one priority.