And I'm looking for a $200 modern recorder....
I was going off your earlier comment about modern recorders achieving what had been done by DAT. There were never any DAT recorders that had a new street price of $200 or less. Thus the comment about the PMD661 for instance.
If what you want is a $200 recorder with RCA digital, the Microtrack II is your only current bet. It only has digi-in, though as I said, I'm not sure what the draw is for a digi-out.
As to a new sub-$200 digital flash recorder that has both digital in and out on RCA, I'd guess you will never see it, no matter how far down the road you wait. Between companies moving away from digital anything let alone digi-out, and moving away from RCA connectors, and the price requirement, my bet is you'd be better off deciding which are the most important aspects you need since you'll never get them all in one recorder.
Sorry, not trying to be a naysayer, just my read on the reality of the situation.