Yes but someone please tell me where the 704 is! I dont need a hard drive, I can install on myself, and I dont need timecode, but four channels would be nice!
Once you get to that level, the number of users who are looking for a hard driveless solution and aren't willing to pay the difference gets really slim. Knocking the drive and timecode off might save you $600. Off of a machine that's $4100 or so, that's not really a stopping point so there isn't a need to differentiate on the product.
Currently, to do that you need two 702s linked together....
Correct, and that's about what it would cost too. On the used market, 2 702s is slightly cheaper then 1 744. Brand new, it's comparable. The advantage of having two separate boxes is when you want to run two recordings in different locations (e.g. impact zone FOB and a sbd patch, or on stage and room sound), the disadvantage is requiring twice the space in your bag and twice the (minimum) power.
If you want the SD sound and aren't doing stuff that is mission critical (in otherwords, you don't need the redundant power supply or media), then grab usbpre2s and a D50, some optical cables and a spdif cable. That's the cheapest way to do it (about $2k for the entire setup).