After speaking with boo and getting a better understanding about what he wants to do, I'd have to say that a digital recorder is really what Boo is looking for. It seems to me that he wants something that has a lot of hands on control and functions that are controlled by panel knobs or easily accessed through a menu.. He also doesn't want to bust his wallet on this one. Personally I think the Zoom MRS-4 would work great for what he wants to do, and if he could afford it the Fostex MR8 would be a great choice for him as well. He could still burn CD's with either unit.. He just has to get the appropriate hardware and software which is fairly inexpensive.

Squeak