The reason location makes a difference is that all products are not available in all locations. The majority of people I've helped in the last month have been overseas. For example, the ATR2100 microphone is not available in the UK at a reasonable cost. The Samson Q2U is, and it's essentially the same mic (or at least its performance is equivalent).

The mixer you get will largely be driven by your budget. How much do you want to spend? The 16.4.2 will probably do everything you want, but so will the Behringer X2442, which is the one that Computers 2K Now uses.

Telephones are tough. There are a lot of problems with telephone interfaces. If you make outgoing calls, the solution is simple. We use Skype and SIP to make telephone calls. We receive calls on Skype and through Blog Talk Radio. Dave Jackson is experimenting with several telephone solutions, such as Call In Studio and UberConference, but so far, none is working well. Blog Talk Radio is the best solution for multiple callers with call screening, but they're terrible. The right way to take phone calls is with a Telos or Comrex digital hybrid and POTS telephone lines. However, that's expensive.

One of these days, I hope that I'll find a good telephone solution. The tools are available (Asterisk server and others), but no one has fully implemented them.