Are there any good USB-connected sound "card"s available ? I know there are a bunch on the market eg a couple from Creative but no idea how they stack up for serious audio use.

The nice thing about a USB-connected card is that you could move it to whatever new computer replaced your... challenged... laptop (mine is 33 MHz, don't feel bad ) even if it were a desktop or something else without PCMCIA.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8