Mixers are dope IMO becasue it is a nice interface/ buffer Between your hardware and software. Its easly accessable and gives your flexabilitity when adding/subtracting stuff from your setup.
Here is what im working with
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~jason12/mixer.JPG
Soundcraft ES10, great qualitiy, low noise level and 10P of stero in's (which is key when u add racks) as well as 4 mono in's
Everything goes into my mixer(my guitar, mpc, fantom rack, motif rack, turntable)
then the audio goes from my mixer to the firwire 410(for recording on the cpu), very flexable
As far as the 8 outs, IMO its a waste of time, espically if u got sounds coming off other gear. The sounds that usually come of my mpc are only drums, basslines, and samples. Everthing else comes off the racks
If you use the cut and paste tracking method i describe in my tutorial here
http://userpages.umbc.edu/~jason12/cubase_tracking_lofi.WMV
You can track out in a matter of minutes. Just solo each track on ur mpc, record in cubase and cut and paste. I can track out entire songs in minutes(and my beats tend to have more then 13 tracks) It also gives u flexability when u want to more bridges and breakdowns around in the mix.
class...
FYI, the video is old, and my setup has grown sense then, ive also switched over to pro-tools which is better IMO