[sdiy] Few newbie question

[James Petts]

Hi Folks

I've built myself a FatMan and modded the crap out of it, plus
built a Theremin and a ribbon controller, but I still feel myself
restricted by what I can do with them, so I'm looking to go
modular.

I've been taking a little look around, and rejected the Paia
9700 series, as that also seems too limiting, and I want to
move onto something a little more open-ended

So, I looked around and came up with the following candidates
for building a modular system:

1. Blacet
2. MOTM
3. Oakley
4. Synthesizers.com
5. Modcan

I like the look of CMS, but I don't have that sort of money, plus
I want to build it myself.

So, on to the questions:

a) Is this a reasonably comprehensive list, or is there another
manufacturer I might want to consider?
b) Are all of these candidates up to the same level of quality,
or are any outstanding?
c) How much does the difference in cost make a difference to
the sound/stability/robustness of these systems?
d) I'm pretty competent with a soldering iron, but don't do SMT
stuff (which I assume none of these utilise). Would anybody
care to comment on the relative merits of bare PCB versus
prepopulated boards as supplied by, say, Oakley. If there is
a significant saving to build it yourself, does that still hold when
buying 1% or .1% resistors, for example, or does it rapidly
disappear with higher spec components?
e) Are there any good resources on the theoretical side of
audio synthesis (I'm not afraid of maths)?
f) Are there any important questions I am missing?

Some backgorund: I'm in the US, so European stuff is pretty
expensive for me, which makes me think that MOTM might
be a good choice.

My budget is about $300-$500 a month, but I'm more interested
in getting a quality system that will last me a lifetime rather than
getting immediate gratification.

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm looking not to make mistakes,
and I'm sure you are all pretty enthusiastic about analgue synths,
so I'm hoping you'll be able to assist me.

Thanks

James