You've got it right. I've got an Alesis Studio32 and Layla24 (used to have two, but I sold the one I never used). If you're anything like me then you'll grow to hate the Studio 32! It's already broke down on me once and the routing matrix on channel 8 doesn't work. Finding a place that would servcie the mixer was a chore. I had to drive over 100 miles from where I live to take it to an authorized service center. It cost over $100 to fix it the first time, I dread to think about what it's going to cost to fix the routing matrix. I would rather do without since I'm planning on getting rid of it anyway.
It's nice to start out with after a while you start to realize that the pre-amps totally suck, the crosstalk is horrible and it's noisy, noisy, noisy! GRRRRRR!! That's just me though. I'm also going to be selling my last Layla in favor of a MOTU 24 i/o system. I need the inputs, but not the seperate PCI cards to do it. So far Echo hasn't done much to address this issue outside of providing the Layla ex, but I had already purchased two Layla24 units before they released that option. IMO the Layla24 is a very nice interface, but it's too limiting in the areas where I need it the most.