New Tascam or old reliable Masterlink?

I would like to use a single, stand-alone recorder and playback machine to record my vinyl in a "mix" style, and want to be able to play back in the highest resolution possible. I would also like to take these mixes and put them on regular CD-R's for car and friend use, and also convert them to MP3 files for my son's iPod.

Which machine is best to accomplish this? I have read that the Masterlink is a sound choice for recording, but is not too great as a player. It also does not have an analog input level adjustment to adjust the fixed output from my preamp.

Tascam has recently introduced the DV-RA1000HD, with a 60 gig hard drive and the ability to record in high resolution to not only CD-R's, but DVD and SACD. I would hope that its playback transport and overall sound quality would be an improvement over the older-design Masterlink, but I would like to hear from anyone familiar with Tascam stuff and this unit or its predecessor (the DV-RA1000 sans the hard drive).

The following are the steps that I assume I would need to take. Please correct and clarify where you can:

I would record to the hard drive in order to most easily record full album sides without stopping; then I would create mix playlists and label the songs; lastly, I would record these mixes from the hard drive to an archival high resolution media. Would I use DVD, or another type for best results/highest resolution?

In order to create standard play CD's and MP3 files, could I create them directly from the unit, or would I have to convert the high resolution media file through use of a computer and additional software?

Sorry for so many questions. I just want to know what I am getting into and what is the right product to accomplish what I would like to do.

Thank you for any input that you can offer.