If they came out with an Eclipse II, I'd order one today! I've already got 4 Factors on my pedalboard and it's just about as big as I care to use. I know a lot of people rack their Factors, too. So, if there's already a rack involved, and at this point, it would probably be just as easy for me to cart around a rack, then I'd vote for seeing the Eclipse stay rackmount. Then again, I'd love a MultiFactor, too, and yeah, I'd order one of those today, too!!
Some of the new DSP chips available now are considerably more powerful than what was available just a few years ago. Of course, I don't know specifics, but I wouldn't have a difficult time imagining being able to put the processing power of the Eclipse into a pedal. I mean, some of the algorithms Space uses seem pretty processor intensive. I don't know how the Space or any Factor compares to the Eclipse in MIPS terms, but I can't think they're too far apart already.
The part I do have difficultly imagining, and I think you allude to this as well, is how they could make a pedal-based interface easier to use without sacrificing a lot of flexibility. I'm sure just having the presets available would satisfy some, but any significant editing would require something like a USB-computer interface and something like VSIG (or FactorLib on steroids).
Throw in a VST and/or RTAS native plug-in interface (for either pedal or rack formats) and now you've got something I could get REALLY excited about. (IMHO, TDM is dying, but that's another topic.) USB or other digital audio in/out would be great, too, but I could live without that on the pedal if it kept the street price reasonable. Obviously, without digital audio, any plug-in interface would really just be MIDI control, but I'm not sure I really care about that, either, for the sake of keeping a pedal within the price range of many working musicians. I think I'd leave digital audio to the rack devices.
Anyway, these are just my first random thoughts… I could see this going either way, or both ways, so I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone else thinks, too…
