I prefer mixing outside of the box also, however, I integrate both worlds into the project.
What I will do is use the DAW as multi-track recorder by connecting the ins and outs of my console to a set of 3 Delta 1010's. I record through the console straight to the DAW. When I do the mixing I will play the tracks out of the DAW and mix it on the console while recording back on to the DAW.
So for instance, if I have a 16-track project, the DAW will output all 16 tracks as I mix it down while recording simutaneously on tracks 17 and 18. Sometimes I will re-record each channel from the console as 16 additional tracks (on 19-34) so I can record exactly what I did as far as outboard processing goes.
This is a bit of overkill, however, in that circumstance where the client comes back a few days later and asks me to "bump up" something, I can do it inside of the box without having to remix the whole thing. So if he wants to change something about the lead singer, I have both the original raw track and the processed track to work with. The only down side to that is I cannot remove anything or lower the volume. There have been cases, however, where I managed to turn up the background vocals as a means to drown out the lead singer a little bit and then recompress the entire mix but that never works as good as doing the whole mix over again.