hmmz, I dunno bout it. I've owned one since the Kb came out and sofar I havent found a reason why I would toss it for the C or any other future model. The C has more voices, more banks, more room for user presets, less knobs I believe and probably a slightly enhanced engine. But in general it's still the same noise. As far as the fx concerns, I hardly use em besides the delay and the distortion. Anything like flangers, chorus, phasers or reverbs are in a rig which is always a better alternative then those supplied with Virus. Another point to look at is how you want to use the Virus, maybe a lot of cats are willing to use it in Multimode since they may not have a lot of gear. The downpart is performance, just like roland gear, the more activity, the lesser the quality, timing, just the whole in general. Therefor I always use it in Single mode, sounds thick in any case, plus I am forced to use the virus as a single instrument resulting in alternative sounds from other gear during the composing of the track. It's like when using a lot chnls from the virus for your production, your production will sound like a virus. I just like a bit of variety in source of sound on the whole production.
The board,
hehe, now what is you mean ?!?!
A soundcraft Spirit ?
A soundtracs Solo ?
My bet goes for the Solo, whatever you need to know on soundtracs
http://www.studiosys.demon.co.uk
It would sort it out on your pricetag issue, I thinks its cheap, but I does not know the condition, they're rocksolid though.