You can also find RME's cards on usb connection. When thinking of thunderbolt, I remember Apolo's interface (by Universal Audio) has the option to use it, along with usb - and that thing also gives you access to their dsp based high end plug-ins.To my mind, it's worthy of the investment for those that can afford it, as it takes some effort out of the cpu for mixing, processing, etc, while providing even greater quality... But you get RME's incredible low latency even using the usb connection, there's a couple interfaces that let you use either usb or firewire, and one of them uses the usb connection only. It's rock solid quality...
But you'd probably get away just fine with something less expensive. It depends on what you want, really - both the number of connections, the quality of pre-amps and converters, the stability of the drivers. Search for reviews for that, don't go with the feature list of the manufacturers. But Roland (or Cakewalk) has a very solid reputation for audio interfaces, Motu does to, TC Electronics also, just to name a few...
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