Mike-
Sorry to hear about your bad luck!
Jaz drives have always been known to be unreliable for audio. Have you heard of the new ORB drives (2.2 gig a cartridge). These appear to be very stable when working with audio and I am considering buying one. Keyboard magazine gave it a 'key buy award'.

The DPS12 was Akai's 1st offering as a portable hard disk recorder/mixer and of course, the 1st product acts as a benchmark as to what to improve in the new models.

The DPS12 got very mixed reviews from the magazines- Keyboard and Sound on Sound really liked it but Electronic Musician and The Mix weren't as thrilled by it.

The DPS16 will have a built in 10GIG hard drive also!

I understand your frustration at your gear 'from the same manufacturer' breaking down and this is unacceptable. I had a couple of my Alesis bits break down also, but I complained very bitterly.