MOTU 2408 or 828/896

[portland]

There is little hope that Yamaha will ever release a functional mLan driver for snow leopard, so I'm looking for new interface / controller option. The M-audio projectmix io seems to be a similar, cheap, working competitor. However, it doesn't offer much room to expand. Besides, I think the 01x is decent as a controller for Logic, and some of the 01x's effects are so glitchy they are useful.

So I'm thinking of keeping the 01x as a Logic controller and occasional FX unit, and buying a new audio interface.
I don't want to make the same mistake I made with the 01x of buying something cheap and then having it become unsupported. In the future I want to get a quality interface (RME maybe) to match my A7s, but in the mean time I just need something cheap that will work with snow leopard in 64-bit. I've read the threads that say that MOTU sound bad compared to Apogee, and I believe it. However, MOTU converters are probably still better than the Yamaha converters in the 01x.

Therefore my plan is to get a used 828, 896/hd, or a 2408 with a PCIe-424. Is there anything significantly better in this price range? What is the advantage of PCIe over firewire? Are there any significant differences in quality between mk1,2, and 3 models? Are you running these in Logic and/or 64-bit, and how are the results?

Also, has anyone used a Black Lion Audio-modified MOTU interface? Would a modified MOTU compete with Apogee/RME/etc? If these are really as good as their website says, MOTU is a win either way.

[Mission Difficult]

I've heard that the Black Lion mods definitely brings the quality of the MOTU units up, but that it's not quite as good as the RME or Apogee stuff. I have a 24I/O and a 2408 mkII. They both sound decent enough, the 2408 is a little harsher on the high end than I would like. The great thing about the 2408 is you can always pipe it better clock and aes/adat from better converters. My interfaces have been rock solid for years now. Also, I would go PCIe over firewire any day. I've done tons installations with firewire interfaces, and have had an incredible amount of problems compared to those with PCIe interfaces.