I went through the same thing a month of so ago as I needed an interface for live use - I ended up with an Echo Audiofire 4 for the following reasons:
1) Good PC driver support.
2) Same AD/DA converters as the Fireface 400.
3) Quite good Pres (with no digital gain).
4) No onboard FX or gimmicks, just a straight forward interface with good sound.
I have been very happy with it so far, and have even used it for some on location recording which wasn't the reason I bought it in the first place.
You have to watch out for with Firewire interfaces on PC though, as if your laptop has an inferior chipset the interface will not work well. Just make sure your laptop/PC is using a TexasInstruments chipset for Firewire and you'll be right.
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