[nostatic]

usually that is a syptom of not seeing the hardware. I've had some weird bugs with PT6. Try trashing the prefs, and throw out all of the "digidesign database" directories that are at the root level of all your partitions. Also try unplugging, then plugging back in the MBox, or shutting down and reseating the Digi001 card. I was able to get my MBox system back up, but then had some wierd white noise spikes...still haven't sorted that one out.

If you're serious about alternatives, I'd suggest Logic over Cubase. Learning curve is steeper, but Cubase on the Mac side has issues (and may always imho). fwiw Logic 5.5 has been very well behaved under 10.2.3 and 10.2.4.