For my two cents worth I'm of the Mr. Bulk line of thinking (with a bit of Scott Yee thrown in). Here's my set-up.

Korg i30, in which I carefully build the whole backing track. This then feeds out to my trusty old Tascam 244 on Track 1 (true, once it's in there I've no room for manoeuvre; that's why I take time with the initial building of the backing in the i30). The I add the lead vocal with my EV stage mic on Track 2 and any harmonies on Track 3 by using my Korg ih, playing along in real time with all the voices muted on the i30. Next I balance the backing/vocal mix and put all the vocal on to a regular cassette (I'm a bit old school, I don't have a CD burner) via an Alesis Microverb. It's all a little 'Jurassic', but it works for me.

This sort of thing is always a 'dreams vs. wallet' exercise anyway. But no matter what, it's fun, and there's no price on that.