Creative finally released an express card sound device for notebooks.
It has optical in/out as well as true 7.1 output. They've had it up on their site for a while but I wasn't able to find it at any retailer online or offline until recently. I found it at Dell last week and went ahead and...
I've been running a Modstream 450 watt for a year or so and loved it. I just ordered the 600 watt version a few minutes ago in anticipation of some new hardware. Looking forward to it.
Something very odd I noticed was that vista took a good 1.5 minutes longer to boot when I had another drive, aside from the system drive, enabled on the computer.
That is pretty much my experience (and preference) as well. I've tried a logitech set (I think) and they were completely functional. They did lack some bass but they filled the need for wireless headphones.
I use an Audigy 2 ZS card, you can get them at a very decent price. Not top line but very solid and an excellent quality, especially if you primarily just need it for music.