Rimshot
The EFX are VST's that can be applied to the real time monitoring and are also available thru your DAW.
You cannot apply these EFX to the signal going into the DAW - only after. 
However, it has been really nice to create a live setting with compression and reverb and play along with YouTube videos. It can sound great with electrical or acoustic guitars. You can then save the custom setup as a program to recall anytime. 
 
I have tested the 2nd monitor mix with Studio One and it works great. In Studio One, the mixer will show the "Cue Mix" where you can adjust pan and level just for that output. 
 

Actually you can record the FX...
Here are a couple of videos I did, back when I got my UR-44.  Yes the headphone outs are a tad low if you like them REALLY cranked...and the pres really not enough gain for good ribbons or some other low output mics...but quiet for that price range.  In those situations, I run another pre-amp before the interface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTR75d-Oz9g  (FX and GUI)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlxxTnFGRtk  (Guitar amp sims)

ampfixer
I should also add that the phantom power is supplied to the 4 mic pre amps in pairs. You can have it on none or any 2 or all 4. 
 

 
That is actually a nice feature for those who use ribbon mics. I have never had or needed 4, but I always assumed "all or nothing" for phantom power until you got higher up the food chain.
 

*dupe*

I am sorry, I stand corrected! The UR44 does allow printing EFX aside from reverb. Here it is from the owners manual:
 
http://screencast.com/t/35HAiDHHAx
 
Thank you mettelus for pointing that out!

Well, you guys have been great about this. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help.
 
Somewhere along this journey I started thinking about the Scarlett 18i8. It's 50 bucks more than the UR-44. It has more ins and outs. The preamps are highly recommended. The Mix Control is super flexible. It does not allow direct input monitoring with effects as does the UR-44, but it does have one feature neither of the other two have: ADAT, so it's expandable down the road should I ever get back into bigger projects with a larger group of players.
 
But "down the road" may not come for a while, and until then what I still don't know about any of these affordable USB2 devices is this: Is the round trip latency low enough that a guitar player, bass player or singer can record through the DAW, monitoring with effects? This is mandatory for me, as I will definitely be using amp sims.
 
So thanks again to all -- you've been awesome, as they say, and if any of you have a strong opinion on the latency issue, please weigh in.

My original intention was to get the ur44 but my dealer said i will have to wait 2 weeks. I end up with the 18i8. I only tested it for a few hours. I can say that 18i8 output is clean, clear and just NICE. It's headphone out is loud enough. A lot louder the ua25ex.

I have never had issues with tracking, but using a slightly different beast. I know GR5 has a low CPU setting, but not sure on the others which also helps. I am reformatting the computer atm, so cannot give you specific latency, but I record around 6ms usually.

If you get a unit from a place with a return policy, you have the option to send it back as well (just in case).

jbraner
Larry - I don't think you're going to like going from 6 ms to 12 ms. I record guitar through amp sits like you, and get 5 - 6 ms rt latency at 64 samples with a PCI card (like you). At 128 samples, it's 7-8 ms but you can hear the lag, if you hear the actual electric guitar strings being hit (vs the amp sound coming through headphones).

I'm going to bite the bullet (I hate spending this much on a audio card) and get a MOTU Ultralite AVB or RME fireface UC. Jim Roseberry says they both go down to 4.8 ms at 64 samples.

jbraner -  The MOTU looks fabulous, but it's out of my budget. I would have to stretch to get the Scarlett 18i8 at $350. Needless to say, the RME is out of the question.
 
I don't know what the cutoff would be for me in terms of latency for playing guitar and monitoring back through a host and an amp sim. I'm fine with my current card (M-Audio Audiophile 2496) with a round trip of 6.1 msec (according to Sonar), but I don't know just how much delay I can tolerate, as all my DAW experience has been with this PCI card. I think M-Audio is done writing drivers for it, so sooner rather than later I will need something new. I hope I can find something that works.

Larry - I think you should pay serious attention to the rt latency (like you are doing...)
Everyone is different - but I bet you really don't want to go much higher than 8-9 ms, maybe 10ms at the most.
 
"zero latency" monitoring is useless for people like us, who want to hear the signal after in goes in to SONAR, through the amp sim, and back out again ;-)

FWIW I am in a similar boat. My m-audio Profire has low latency yet I can still feel it when I play. My next interface needs to have low latency. While the MOTU Ultralight is more money than I want to spend and has more I/O than I need, it is the interface I am most likely going to upgrade to if my Profire quits working in Windows 10. The fact that Jim Roseberry is recommending it means a lot to me.