What a shame the 01x doesn't do windows 7. I was completely gutted and now use mine as a digital mixing desk. I think Mlan was great apart from the rubbish support from yam obviously.

Anyway, I went with an a500 pro controller keyboard and do think it works very well. Motorised faders it doesn't have but it has.....

Sliders control track volumes.
It remembers which windows you are in and allocates the controls appropriately.
Easy to set up controls for all softsynth and effects, which it remembers forever. (Most of the time).
Cheap.
Good on space.
Drum pads are ok.
Lots of rotary controllers and sliders.
Transport control.

For me the 01x was great as it allowed hardware mixing and cubase/sonar software controls all from the one box.

I think I would wait until some usb3 stuff comes out. That is the future IMHO. No need for FireWire anymore and usb3 is v fast so you should be able to get an 01x type of setup which includes the audio interface built in and will run very quickly and handle anything you throw at it.

I think those vs700 are a total rip off tbh. The a series keyboards on the other hand are cheap and give everything the 01x did in terms of a controller, but with easier setup using act, which I find very easy to use and setup.

I may get a fully fledged controller surface soon, but will wait until we see usb3 devices which are probably going to be very good value for money.

Touch works pretty well by now, my secondary monitor is multi touch, I use it when I work from my 88 weighted keys. It's mounted on a heavy duty vesa arm so I can position it any way I want.

Only thing that needs to be fixed is the faders/knob problem that every DAW I've tried has, no idea why it can't work.

Once that's fixed, I'm getting a large 40" non-capacitive (infrared like my current one, much better since they use glass that's hard to scratch) touch screen and building a custom  studio desk with the screen built in at an angle so I can rest my hands on the table and ditching my controllers.

I hope that hardware isn't completely taken out by touch screen. I personally prefer the feel of real controls but then again I'm old-ish. I can't see it taking over completely but there's no denying that manufacturers are going to be going all out to convince us we need it.

My reason for going with touch asap is that I've never ever found a controller that does it all, and then I end up having to switch between more than one or click banks, scroll though presets etc.. and once I'm done with that, it has taken longer than just grabbing the mouse, making the controller completely pointless.

No setup, no wear or tear, no special drivers, no reliance on special hardware and since everyone is pushing it so hard with win8 now, good high resolution multi touch will become dirt cheap.