gswitz
Touch.

If I didn't already have a device that did MCU or a VS700 I'd get a touch screen monitor. Unlike control surfaces a touch screen monitor has all sorts of uses and the prices are dropping pretty quickly. Sure it doesn't feel the same as  a p&g or alps fader but I think you gain a lot more flexibility and mileage out of the device if you're willing to sacrifice the mixer-like feeling. 

Drool...slobber..drool... 
 
$599 MAP - Cheaper than a used MCU, and better looking too... rtpMidi over ethernet... slap me silly and call me George!
 

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/X-TOUCH.aspx for those who are looking for a link to that device.  Looks like a nice upgrade to the BCF2000 (which is still a pretty cool unit, FWIW).
 
A few nice to see features that are definite upgrades to the current: dedicated transport controls, dedicated mute/solo/record rather than multi-function buttons, jog/shuttle wheel - which if you haven't use one is really great for navigation, a MAIN volume control slider, and a host of others.  I do wonder how some of these buttons, like the read/write automation buttons, etc will perform within Sonar.
 
While it looks nice and has what looks like all kinds of features, it appears to still require the Mackie Control Protocol to work right, which means that we'd STILL need an update to the Mackie dll file in order to really take advantage of everything.  Especially as there are more features, it seems that we'd need better support of the Mackie protocol even more in this case.
 
Here's a quick NAMM video about this unit and the two new smaller versions as well (one that looks even more like the BCF replacement) - all of these are supposedly due out by summer: http://www.soundonsound.com/news?NewsID=16922