Anent the issue of microcontrollers vs. analogue solutions, there's
an article that doesn't say much in ED today:
http://bit.ly/gDcDx1
As you said, pretty much content-free. I think it can be sumarised by
'The best design depends on the applciation, the designer's skills and
the contents of the junk box' :-) Something which is hard to disagree with.
-tony