jmorris,
I understand your delima. If you want to get Sonar XL and the MOTU 2408, you can still use your outboard gear. Here is what you do:
1) Hook up the MOTU 2408 to your PC and the eight analog I/O to your mixer (You will have to get a converter like
the Alesis AI3 if you whant to use more than 8 tracks.)
2) Load Sonar XL to your PC.
3) Record your music from your mixer into your PC.
4) Clean your audio tracks with Sonar or any plug-ins you may have. (Sound Forge is a great tool to use)
5) Assign your tracks to different outputs on the MOTU 2408 and set your volume levels to in Sonar.
6) Mix and add your reverb and other effects once the hit your board.
If you find that you run out of chanels in your MOTU 2408, you can sub group audio tracks in Sonar by assigning them to the same output. You can then premix them in Sonar before the hit your mixer. Mind you that any thing you do on the mixer will affect both audio tracks using the same output. Another thing, once you start stacking audio tracks in Sonar, make sure that the sum of the audio levels do not clip the MOTU 2408. If they do, just bring their individual levels down and bump the fader up for them on the mixer.
Now if you want to stay away from PC recording and want something more simple, I would suggest buying
an Alesis HD24. Of course you would not have MIDI sequencing or the same audio tools that are availible in Sonar, but you would have a simple and stable platform to record on. With the HD24, you can always transfer the audio files from the HD24 to you PC via an ethernet connection to edit the sound files, and you can sync the HD24 to your PC via MIDI (MTC/MMC) to use the sequencer in Sonar.