Well, MD, I just got one two days ago. I haven't found many reviews or had a chance to even play with it yet. I've been, however, reading the manual with a furrowed brow the whole time though. It's very very unfriendly, unless, maybe, you know how the VF80 works, then maybe it would make sense.
I shopped around for a digital recorder with a HD and CD burner and this is the one I thought was best. JDsound.com had the best deal out there, $618.94, which included shipping and the CDR-1 which they graciously had installed for me themselves. Can't go wrong with it at that price.
Not much help I know....sorry.
Manual's OK (well, only just) as long as you play with the box at the same time - makes a lot more sense. Once you've got to grips with it, it's very straightforward. There are three of us in the band, plus drum machine, and it's very easy to send two tracks at a time to the Fostex from the mixer.
Recording / AD quality seems as good as the prosumer Audiowerks card in my PC, but I'm a newbie so can't give you an expert opinion. Won't be using the internal mastering etc., prefer to dump the .wavs to my PC.
If you have any burning questions and are stumped by the manual, but I'm not really very far ahead of you
MD - mine's an Audiowerk 2, by Emagic in Germany. It's rather dated now, but can't afford an upgrade at present.
Any soundcard that has a digital in will do the job I described - you just record using an audio editor with the digi as the input. The Fostex manual is very clear on how to use the SPDIF out.