Total crap? not by far my friend, I own one and it is a real nice quiet mixer, (including the pre's) and good routing options....Very useable, you will get great recording off of it....
Hey, thanks for the replies, really. A friend of mine wants a simple, cheap setup to track his songs on (he plays bass, guitar and sings) and later mix down his ideas on my Soundcraft 6000. So essentially it's 'ease of use' and 'half decent preamps.' He likes 60 sounding music, so I figured a Mackie (as well as being more pricey and more limited with routing options) may prove sonically less satisfying for him than somethig a bit more 'vintage' like the 450.
Weird looking beast though! The mixer that is, not my friend.