There are lots of variations on this theme, but what has worked well for me......
ASUS Motherboards, go with their flagship and buy a CPU that is just under the flagship.
Go for the all in one solutions to the firewire/usb/ethernet moboards.
Keep an eye on your options, you want to be able to have flexibility down the road.
Go all SATA on your burners and drives.
For audio interfaces, there are countless options.
I personally use a RME HSDP card and LOVE it, but you need something more in line for usabiltiy.
I would suggest one of the firewire type options that Presonus or Motu has.
Super easy to setup and use, plus you have tons of inputs/outputs with pretty good preamp/converters.
You could use it at home, or use it with the laptop in the field. They are pretty stable in my experiences with them.
Good luck, Phil
EDIT to add: Having used most every type of audio software at one time or another, I would ditch Cool Edit Pro and move
to a program like Nuendo. It can be rather expensive to purchase, but there are certainly "trial" versions out there.
Soundforge is another longtime favorite for 2 channel post production. I actually prefer the pre-sony version. 7.0
That's pretty much all I use there days. Nuendo and Soundforge. Can't think of anything else I need, except more plugins.