Eying theirs since it is on sale, but stable, workable, drivers are a must. Also, if anyone has other recommendations, I'm game. What I am after is just something with reliable ASIO/WASAPI drivers and a S/PDIF out. That's it, nothing fancy at all :).

No experience with NI interfaces, but I was in the market a couple months ago and as I searched more and more I fell into the Focusrite product line and threw this thread out before I made my purchase. Now that I have used it a month I am more than pleased, since it has exceeded all of my expectations.
 
In the past few months I have not seen anyone with negative comments on Focusrite, so I took the plunge, but cannot speak to any other brand.

My son has a NI interface made for DJ'ing, just RCA in/out. But he abandoned it because of the pour drivers for W7 64 bit.  This was 4 years ago, things might have changed. He uses it to watch movies. 

I picked up a KA6 for my laptop for casual recording use and for playing amp sims, listening to music and whatnot.
 
I looked at the lower end Focusrites, but a number of reviews stated that the instrument inputs lacked enough headroom for unattenuated guitar/bass usage, if that's a concern for you.
 
Seems to be stable for me running Win8.
 
But you'll definitely want to check on the s/pdif out, as there is an issue in that when I tried to run a loopback via the s/pdif i/o but was unable to because it apparently expects to receive a clock signal at the s/pdif in but didn't get it. There was some discussion of this on the NI boards so there was apparently a dumb design decision made. This is not a particular problem for me, but it might be for you, so you'll definitely want to check into it.

Hmmm. I'll check out the Focusrite products, since the instrument ins are not a concern. I am only looking at a device for S/PDIF out, nothing else. This is a special use soundcard, not my general one :D.

been using an Audio Kontrol 1 on my laptop and, until I got firewire sorted so my saffire would run properly, on my desktop machine, for years with no headaches... totally reliable usb interface