Mackie Onyx 1640i vs. Zed R16

Okay so I'm about to upgrade my interface. I've been using firewire mixers for a long time for my front end. But now I want to use one as my back end as well. I've pretty much narrowed it down to the Mackie Onyx 1640i or the Allen and Heath Zed R16. I have currently have a Mackie 1620i and I love it's preamps. Hate that all the useable gain is in the last quarter turn of the knob, but love the preamps. I am very familiar with the Mackie eq and I know what it can do. So the Mackie does hold an appeal. As well as having the buses and all those sends. The Allen and Heath on the other hand has an eq section with an adjustable bell curve on it's fully parametric eq. It also has that built in transport control which I got to be honest really appeals to me. Even if it does lack any buses, and very limited sends. Sends with no dedicated returns actually. You have to use the stereo channels and they are not printable to firewire on there own, only as part of the master mix. So the Zed has some limitations the Mackie doesn't. But they aren't limitations that can't be dealt with in a small modest project studio. I would rather have those buses, but like I said all that MIDI control on the Zed looks rather appealing as well. I have heard that the early Zed R16 had quality control issues. I don't know if these have been resolved or not. Which is why I am here asking for your input. I know Mackie, I've been using their gear for 20+ years. I still use a 18 year old VLZ from time to time for live stuff. I own the 1620i as well. So I am very familiar with Mackie. I don't, on the other hand, really know squat all about Allen and Heath. I've heard the name and seen their stuff on the internet for a few years. But, I live in a small town and our local stores don't carry them. I've never known anybody who owned any of their gear either. It's a lot of money to drop on any single item for, like I said before a very small and modest project studio. I've got it to spend and, I am dieing to go back to my analog roots. I just don't want to buy something that is going to crap out on me in a year. My wife would kill me if I came to her in a year and said I needed to drop another 2 grand on the same thing I bought last year. Like I said I really like a lot of things about that Allen and Heath and for the most part it's drawbacks aren't a deal breaker for me. I just don't know about it's longevity. Anybody out there help me out on this one?

Thanks for your input! I appreciate it. No I haven't heard much about Allen and Heath but, like I said small town and the nearest music stores to me don't carry a lot in the way of selection. For that it's a 4 hour car ride to a big city. I've been studying the manuals to both the Zed R16 and the Mackie for a couple of weeks online. Being an old school analog guy I've seen where, they both have their drawbacks and, they both have workarounds for those drawbacks. That being said,I really have no intention of using the Zed for mixing ITB. I really want to go back to my analog past. Use my DAW for tracking, soft synths, and editing, bring my all my old rack gear back out to play. I've got many thousands of dollars worth of rack gear that I would love to mix down with. All that aside I was leaning heavily towards the Allen and Heath largely because of the praise in Sound on Sound, and what I could get from the forums on Gearsluts. I just never really read a lot from anybody on long term use. And I did read a bit about the early round of production Zed's with problems. I was just wanting to confirm with a couple of people who have owned one problem free for more then a year. Honestly though I think the size of my desk is going to help make my decision for me. I did some checking last night and the Mackie 1640i won't fit on my desktop. It's too long. Not so sure I want to buy yet another desk. I've already gone thru five in the last three years trying to find one I like, and I really like this one.

Okay so one more question. If I wanted to re-amp a guitar with the Zed how would I do that? Would I be able to route the dry signal back to a channel on the Zed and then take it out at the insert? Kinda like how I used to get tracks into a multitrack tape machine back in the day?