A top analog machine is still superior to 16 bit digital (even with high quality 24 bit A/Ds). The big reason analog has been overshadowed by DAT is mostly a financial issue. A high quality analog mastering machine will cost between $5-15K depending on how nuts you go. Couple that to the fact that a 2Hr DAT tape is only a few bucks and 25 minutes of 1/4" 10" reel of Quantegy 499 is $20, you can see how people have moved away from analog. Its also kinda hard to pick up a 200 lb Ampex and throw it in the car.
As far as DAT v CD as a transport, it is all relative. It is subject to the same jitter issues as a CD transport. The medium doesn't inherrintly reduce the jitter and in reality, the most popular early DAT was the Panasonic SV-3700 which has some horrible jitter specifications and was used to record a rather large amount of music.
People have also questioned the long term shelf life of a DAT so I would be hesitant to use it as a long term storage format. Analog tape is still the best for this and is what the Smithsonian and various others recommend for long term shelf life.
When doing live recording, hard drivers or DAT is still the medium of choice. The CD-R is too prone to dropouts and is not reliable for live recording.
And Clueless- Already done them all minues the jitter tests... Results: winner - 2 track analog. As far as digital goes though, you can get a darn fine recording with an Apogee 24 bit A/D dithered to 16 bits with the built in UV-22. The key to 16 bit recording is using a high quality 24 bit A/D so you can keep the bit rate high. A straight 16 bit recording never makes good use of the 16bits and you usually get a resolution no better than 14 bits (especially with classical).
