no insult at all ... you're right, computer technology is evolving, sometimes incredibly fast.
i remember some years ago there have been long discussions about the question if one can *hear* the difference between 16 and 24 bit and i often hear statements like *sampler A sounds better than sampler B*, even with identical source of data. so there is clearly more involved than bits and kHz ...
currently it seems the efforts are mostly related to get all instruments into a single computer rather than to use farms, but who knows ... the next (at least fo me) logical step to 24/96 would increase data to more than twice the amount, maybe we don't care about it in a few years ...
christian
and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.