Whatever you decide to go for, hearing yourself play is priceless.

I've got a POD xt, and it's great - I actually use a tascam unit (428) to do my recording, and cakewalk sonar to hack it all together. :cool:

It's definitely worth the investment. If you buy guitarport I suspect you'll want something better sooner rather than later... my playing cleaned up massively after I was able to hear what the audience could hear...