Anyway, back on track here....
In my constant addiction to try something new, I have ordered a few new toys.
1)
http://www.coridiumcorp.com/ARMweb.php (but I am not happy with the very limited program memory area). I like it because I can program it in basic and it has built in support for 1-wire and I2C etc.
2)
http://embeddeddatasystems.com/page/EDS/PROD/HA/HA7Net
I thought that would be nice to play with.
3) I just breadboarded a circuit with (2) Dallas 1-wire 8 channel switches. I have used TTL tri-state latches to multiplex the 8 channels into 32 outputs and 32 inputs. 1 of the DS2408s will control the 8 data bits to the latch, the other DS2408 will select the active latch via the Latch Enable strobe line. In theory you could expand this as wide as you wanted. It is nice because your controller only needs to be hard coded with the address of the DS2408s.
I have an atmega 128 but no dev board ( I was going to build one but decided not to go crazy trying to solder it down).
Lastly, I am looking at the ethernut base boards and the netburner stuff.
I am having troble shying away from the PC even though it is not the most stable thing in the world. VB.NET is very powerful and I am having trouble cramming what I want into a small uC.