1) I'm primarily interested in working in the Modular III / Flexor environment-- generally, what kind of polyphony can I expect for a moderately complex polysynth patch (with fx) on a 6-dsp card? a 14-dsp?
The heaviest patch I made, should allow 2-3 voices on a 6dsp card, but it's a real monster, I've seen also patches doing 10-12 voices on such a card....and also more if they use wavetables....A 14dsp card gives you a lot of power you can have much more stuff than a patch....
2) Can I process external audio in realtime using the Modular III environment?
Absolutely! and no latency at all. You could have a stupid dx7 outboard and transform it in something huge...You can compress, treat, emulate amplifiers (FleXor package of modules for the Modular is absolutely stunning in all these tasks and has the better sounding filters of all the VA history). I use a Modular patch to connect an outboard vintage Davoli Krundaall spring reverb as aux effect to the stm2448 mixer, that allows me to eq. it and with some envelope followers I can shape the response and transform it in Hall, Room, Ambience, Reverse...hehe a delirium!
3) In general what is the quality of the effects on the scope platform. How much of this depends on whether you get the "mix and master" package? On par with say, midrange Lexicon?
I find the quality overall excellent. I recommend the M&M package. If you go a bit around on PlZ you can read opinions. An highlite are P-100 and A-100+I-100 Reverb stuff designed by Warp69 and distributed by Sonic Timeworks, they are similar to hi-end lexicons rather than midrange ones.
I stopped using CPU native stuff at all!
4) How do you perceive the quality the A/D and D/A converters in the scope line of cards? COmparable to the low-end pro audio cards like M-Audio or Echo?
It seems to me very good, the external CWA converters boxes are said to be excellent.
Personally I use an Apogee Mini-Me that's very very good, I didn't try other cards directly.
I hope it helped
