Ended up buying a Fostex VF160 EX, which is a beautiful machine, but huge. It's similar to the tape recorders except it uses a hard drive instead of cassettes and can write audio CDs with the final result.
The Zoom R16 / R20 is also pretty much the same thing except it writes to SD cards, is much smaller, and can be battery powered.
But in the end, the best of them all seem to be the Zoom H4N Pro / Zoom H6 / Zoom H8. They offer a "multi-track" mode which behaves in the same way, but... they are tiny in comparison and you can use them for many other purposes as well!
It's cool to bring back old technology, but sometimes you also need to KISS. These multitrack recorders are huge, while a Zoom H4N Pro / H6 is something that does the same job - and more - and you can carry everywhere in your pocket.
I would skip the tape and get a Boss digital 4 track like a boss br-532. It has a drum machine, some basic effects. Each track also has 8 "virtual tracks", so you do have some room to record variations, but more importantly, it lets you record 4 tracks and then "mix them down" to a virtual track, allowing you to record 3 new tracks on top. You can even keep mixing more and more tracks down (though you lose the ability to mix them all independently). But because you have "virtual tracks" all the original tracks are still there and you can always go back and remix them.
