Deck For Os X And Motu 828, Annoying problems with Deck in OS X. Options

[feenomenal]

I seem to recall that others had problems with the MOTU 828 and Deck for OS X in the past. Lately it's been driving me crazy. My MOTU will seemingly disappear from the Mac while in the middle of playing back recorded tracks, and I have to power it off and back on to bring it back. Also, I can very reliably count on Deck "unexpectedly quitting" while launching if the MOTU is powered on first. If I turn off the MOTU, Deck will launch. Then I can power the MOTU back on and use it normally. It's very annoying. Deck will occasionally crash during use as well, again requiring powering off the MOTU, relaunching Deck and powering the MOTU back on.

I recently upgraded to the non-beta drivers from www.motu.com. Anyone else have this problem? I thinking of ditching Deck altogether for something else, although I have to admit that prospect doesn't look promising given the price of other products. I might just wait for Digital Performer.

Any word on Pro Tools Free for OS X? What programs have good demo versions available so that I can test them out with my hardware?

I'm using an iMac 800Mhz / flat panel with 512Mb of RAM (I wish it were more).

Thanks,
Mike