Discussing esoteric, narrow-niche products when talking about what someone should or shouldn't get for a basic home rec tape setup...is kinda pointless.
Bottom line...if you wanna play around with tape recording in a typical studio situation (home or pro)...you're going to be looking at either used or used rebuilt/reconditioned on the pro side. There's some "newish" pro multitracks, but mostly built from used parts, etc.
I don't think any of the three new decks mentioned above will find their way into any typical studio setup.
AFA that TASCAM deck...it's primarily a dubbing machine (if your are referring to the 202 MKVII)...OK, you can use it for mixing down too, I guess, if it works for you for that...but you still need a multi-track deck for recording, so you're back to the used stuff.
I think that TASCAM is just looking to fill a niche market with that new cassette deck, because there's a lot of cassette tapes flying around, and people are trying to make copies, etc...but I don't see TASCAM going back to their heyday multitrack designs for the home rec crowd, and certainly nothing "pro" level.