I'm very confused by this logic. The whole reason I never considered the RME gear is how expensive it is compared to other gear that has more features.
To clarify my post: They didn't say the preamps were bad, not at all.. but in comparison to the very very high-quality converters, the preamps seemed rather "standard" to them. With better preamps you could possibly get even better sounding results.. that was the tenor
The routing flexibility and a lot of other specs are pretty unique! (@melodeath)
This looks on the cards for me in september- sweet. I wouldn't consider this expensive in the long run- I mean its got a TON of I/O options and the quality of the converters seem savage.