Does he want to replace the whole setup? If so, does that mean 16 preamps and some kind of interface, along with a control surface?
If so, there aren't many options and they're all low to low/medium quality. M-Audio ProjectMix I/O or Tascam 1884 plus an outboard preamp maybe? Not sure if either of these supports 24/96 though.
If he doesn't need a control surface and is mixing with a mouse in the box, I'd probably go with an 8 channel interface like the Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 (8 decent quality "utility" preamps) and a Mackie Onyx 800R (8 very good quality preamps). S/MUX will allow 24/96 on both units, and the Focusrite is a firewire box, so an additional interface wouldn't be necessary.
Lots of different ways to do this, depending on your friend's exact needs.
Is he actually recording 16 channels simultaneously? If not, the above suggestions can be drastically altered.