Thanks for all the positive comments! Esp cajones of steel hahahaha I dunno about that, my legs were shaking like a little girl on prom night! LOL

Ok so the GAS has settled down a little bit, in wanting to make the right choice I've held off this long already whats a few more weeks. I can still loan the Delta blues for now so will continue using it to earn a few extra bucks to help pay for the gas.

Right now, I think I've settled on the Roland BA-330. It's powered. BIG plus. Speaking with Roland direct they see no issues with clipping and or popping/distortion with ANY signal I send it's way.....not what the shop said so I tihnk he was triyng to talk me into the Peavey KB-2 KB amp which was terrible but the only option that was quick easy to check out at the time. Roland also sent me a diagram on how to hook it all up - they advise there is no need for a Fx loop but still unsure about this. They recommendation was to plug guitar into Tuner > ME50 > RC50 and then to PA. This goes against everything I thought was right in that you amplify your signal first, then add Fx etc.

So being that these are fairly specific questions, using gear that is not entirely common, this weekend I will take my rig in and test it with known options. The BA-330 seems it will fill my needs now perhaps overkill a little (as was my RC50 when I first got it, now I can't use an RC2 cause it lacks features of the 50 but I digress), but if I happen to get other gigs as a result then this will also suit future needs should they arise and that was the *hope* plan anyhow..... It's a bit more $ than I wanted to spend, but that's ALWAYS the way with gear if you get decent stuff to begin with.

Thanks to all for the many tips/suggestions....I will write a review once I've decided and bought in case anyone has similar questions.