Firstly
@Ramsy
What is the question? I think you forgot to ask it unless I haven't read properly
Secondly
I have a 24channel focusrite soundcard with preamps. A Saffire Pro. Now discontinued but newer (better I guess) models out there. The pre amps are beautiful. Everything you have heard me post has been recorded on this (except "letting Go" as that was an old demo). Focusrite have good word of mouth for a reason.
Even tho the first one I had caught fire! (Long story, they sorted it!)
I hear some big artists recorded using the saffire pro (Jamiriqoi or however it is spelt)
I would avoid M-Audio. I had a 10channel inbuilt audio card from them. High noise and "clicked" for no reason on some recordings. This is the processing brain of your sound system. Do not skimp here!!!
Yeah I forgot! But you kind of answered it here...
At some point in the future I'm gonna want to upgrade my interface to 24 analogue I/O...as you have a big mackie desk I figure you must have that kind of number of I/O and wanted to know my options...
But as far as I understood for the saffire...they seem to have a maxmimum of 8 analogue ins/outs and the rest are digital? So I would still need some addiontal ADC/DAC's
I'm also not too keen on having something with built in preamps...(of course, if it doesn't make it any more expensive/complicated...whatever)...
Habitat...
The laptop mic socket would/should be made with the right input impedance. BUT it won't provide phantom power (unless that mic has batteries in it or something...) and mic inputs on computers are generally shockingly bad amplifiers with bad noise anyway, as it's not so important on a computer (for casual users, it's good enough for skype and more extensive users would generally either have a conferencing system setup...or be doing audio stuff and have other equipment...)...
I also imagine the noise level of that mic is not great, although even on cheap mics the noise would be fairly low (if audible...)