Yes, the pres on the Korg are not the best (not to say they are rubbish). I use external pres for everything and shoot into the D1200 or the PC using S/PDIF. This way I totally bypass the pres on the Korg.

However, if you are recording digitally, you can loop any length of anything you like for as long as you like using either the D1200 or the D1600 so the second criticism is a bit of a nonsense.

The AW16G only has two powered XLR inputs, Id make sure this isn't going to be a problem, especially if you want to record a lot of stuff simultaneously. It also can't record at 24 bit and 20GB HDD can fill up quickly.

In defense of Korg check out:

http://www.korgstudios.com (everything Korg recording)

or even

http://www.vsplanet.com (for the Roland v-studio kit which, though I have never played with it, also sounds good!)

You will be able to find (Mk I) D1600s on eBay for cheep cheep cheep in the next couple of months as people will be upgrading to the new D1600 MK II or the even newer D16XD / D32XD. If you are not interested in USB data transfer (I was burning .wav files to a CD-RW and sneaker netting the tracks to my PC) or working with MIDI (other than Midi synch), these bits of kit will be a real bargain (I’m guessing well under a grand).