Just today I got a really good deal on a Mackie Onyx 1620i mixer, which is a 16 channel mixer and firewire audio interface in 1. I get a 8 mono and 4 stereo channel analog mixer, and all these channels are also available in Cubase 
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Pretty neat, would’ve been way too expensive for me normally, but I got lucky 
. Got one for €280 new, where they normally sell for at least €900 here.
I think this gives you the best of both worlds, although there are some drawbacks of course. This model I got has only 1 stereo firewire output, so if you want to use outboard effects on already recorded material, you’ll need to do some patching. Especially since apparently the insert points on the mixer are post AD, so you can’t print your hardware effects while recording.