Eric,
You should be excited about your new 003. It, like so many other DAW's out there, has Titanic capabilities. I really hate to see someone entering into a new DAW worried about this converter-vs-that converter and this pre-vs-that pre. The Motu pre's are great the Digi pre's are great. Work with them.
Rise above, learn technique, learn parameters, understand eq, understand compression, understand how things sonically fit and how they don't, pay attention to your room and work (no matter your budget) to make it as trouble free as you can.
If you need room treatment tutorials look up Ethan Winers stuff. Read up on Bob Katz mastering technique and even more reveling his white paper on metering.
If you're micing understand that it is a lifelong mission to learn great technique and what worked yesterday may not work today.
Learn the software. Pro Tools, like all of the others, is endlessly deep. I see so many hot shot interns come through here that haven't a clue as to how to really take advantage of Pro Tools software. Many who bitch and wine about Digi's secret mission to screw the public are ill equipped to make those comments based upon their total ineptitude of understanding the software.
Record, make mistakes and record again. If something turns out less than stellar point the finger at the engineer NOT the Digi pre's. Don't rush out and buy something because of a failed session.
Really if you're in this (recording) to make great sounds, even if it's a hobby, you gotta realize that great engineering is a culmination of hard, hard work, knowledge, knowledge applied, failures, lessons learned and an understanding that it takes a lifetime to become a master.
It's NOT the pre's..
Rant over