emusonacid! legacy

Hello everyone,
This is my first post here so I'll quickly introduce myself:
I have had an e5000 ultra for some time now, Have used it for a few projects (mainly using an RM1X as a sequencer for splitting clouds of note on messages. by mapping CC 94 to sample start position I was able to re-synthetise sounds in a granular way - a smooth turn of a knob would just play the sample, a slower turn sounded like time-stretching but you could also stop it on a tone, and CC's 74 and 73 on the rm1x were assigned to control emu's filter.
Those were good times.
Then after moving out I left emu with my parents, and went for electribes es1 and esx, both compact sampler+step sequencer combos.
But now I am starting to feel an urge to go back to the dusty old EMU and start some more serious fun.
But here's the thing:
Back then there was EOS Link on win xp, pci card with SCSI. Now I guess thats a common pain for samplists today.
So I could live with not having SCSI anymore, if I could do a few things which my cheap Ultra does not do.
(Please dont say that your e4xt ultra does them. There seem to be none available for purchase in europe at the moment. And when they do appear the prices are still quite high - simply upgrading might be then not feasible.
Things that I would like to have in my E5000 would be:
1) ASCII input. much easier to just have your hands on the keyboard and control the sampler instead of bending your neck over tiny buttons on the front panel. EOS Link used to do that. It no longer works on OSX afaik.
2) More outputs.
3) digital in - for uploading samples. floppies are fun ( I use them with rm1x) but waiting minutes for 0.6mb sample to save is no fun.

I know I could just hunt for a DWAM expansion but it seems like there was only two on ebay in the last 8 years or so, and are quite expensive too.

So I was wondering if any of you has any experience in moving parts between different series sampler?
For example taking opamps from an older non-ultra sampler that can be found cheaply, and soldering them onto slots on my ultra?

Is Ascii input a small board that can be connected somewhere to my board?

What about compatibility? Maybe rom expansions from proteus series be re-soldered somewhere else?
What about repairs? Front panels seem swappable, is that true?

Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Ha, now you have ideas... Well, solution simple, you know it.. Buy E-Synth/E4XT Ultra, and you have what you want, 8 Outputs/Digital/ASCII, the ASCII btw. is a part of the D/WAM option.

also ditch the floppy and get a card reader: viewtopic-f=1&t=3637.php.html