Modern day equivialnt of MAudio ProjectMix IO

Hi all,
 
I'm new here, howdy everyone!
 
I do my recording on a BOSS BR800. Recently I've been playing around with Reaper into an MAudio Firewire 410 I inherited from a friend, but now thinking of making the plunge to Sonar and also investing in some hardware to go with it.
 
From a HW perspective I was looking for something that can act as a control surface and an audio interface in one hit. My reasoning is that it just seems clunky to have BOTH an audio interface and a second piece of hardware as a control surface (although I'm open to having my mind changed if anyone disagrees).
 
So far I've not found alot of stuff that fits the bill - the MAudio ProjectMix IO seemed perfect but is now obsolete. I love the fact that the Projectmix gives you some basic recording, tweaking of the input record tracks, without barely touching the PC (in theory). Also it seems a nice control surface. I need min 4 simultaneous recording inputs so its good for that. However, even if it wasn't obsolete, I'm not sure I want to stick to Firewire. Maybe USB 2.0 is the more accepted way forward nowadays?
 
Behringer makes something called a Xenyx UFX1024 that also seems to fit the bill, but I don't know how much confidence I have in a Behringer product to act as a reliable audio interface (again, maybe this is a little unfair).
 
To add another curve ball, seems that using your iPad as a control surface these days is a good option.
 
I just wanted to throw it out there to see if anyone has some helpful suggestions to narrow down the field a little?
 
Cheers!

I use the Behringer XR-18. It has MIDAS Preamps in it and is very clean.  It is also an 18 Channel digital mixer that is about the size of a lunch box.  18 Inputs (16 of them have those nice preamps!).
 
I am just getting used to it, but so far it has been good to me.  The forum at Behringer is starting to gain momentum and the $699 price tag is not bad either.