Wow, I go off-line for a few days, come back here, and it took me about 20 minutes of reading just to catch up to you guys!
Regarding the 12 string discussion, I have non-buyer's remorse for passing on a really nice looking Jerry Jones 12 string (JJ is now out of business, won't see any more of those!) late last year - ~$1,500. See it
here, along with some other gems like sitar-guitar thingies.
Regarding the Radial, yes, I agree, you can't go wrong, AFAIK, anyway.
I have the JDV MKIII, and it is very solid, very good gear. Mind you, I am a bit of nut with what I do with it, so maybe you shouldn't listen to me.
I take my guitar into the JDV, and from there I break out the signal to 4 different amps/pre-amps. I take the outputs of those into separate channels on my Mackie 1640i. Then using the aux-sends on the Mackie, I pipe varying amounts of my amp/pre-amp signals into various pedals/efects via the aux-sends. I then take the outputs of my pedals/rack effects back into the Mackie via separate (or sometimes stereo) channels. What I end up with is a harmonically rich, complex tone, thundering through 16+ channels, and it keeps me up late, playing with variations. Just the other night I realized that my config lets me send delay lines into delay lines. I did not get any sleep that night.
I did a lot of research when I bought the Radial, nothing else really came close, and I couldn't be happier with the outcome.