Hey Jim -
Sweetwater (and Musician's friend) are both selling ti for $1,199 now. For what it's worth, I bought my Korg MR1 from Sweetwater, and when it flaked out a couple days past the 30 day return window, they were great about letting me return it. They actually shipped me a brand new one and just had me ship mine back, no charges at all. Since then, unless it's a significant difference in price I try to buy Sweetwater - peace of mind from an online seller is a rare thing! And besides, they always ship you some candy with each order <grin>.
I'm still tormenting myself over going with the MR1000 to have an all-in-one solution, so I've been looking around as well. Busman does a mod of the preamps too, which sounds like it might be worth doing if you do land one of these beauties...
Good luck!
Mike