I actually only want the Z3i
These boards are known to be rather picky at what cards they accept and in which slots they accept them - their implementation of Zorro is "just close enough" to get many things working somewhat reliable - other things (most notably RAM cards) simply don't work or work only half the time and/or in half the slots.
I had the predecesssor of the Z3i, and for a simple gfx card (Picasso 2) and an Oktagon SCSI controller it was okay. Not a performance miracle, but better than AGA/scsi.device I had used before.
The more cards you try to use, the less stable it gets (both mechanically and electronically). And don't even try to use one with a A4000 cpu card, that's a recipe for desaster.
for a possible future upgrade to PPC (this and the SCSI).
For network, you can (should) use a PCMCIA card. BlizzardPPC also means access to a Blizzardvision that I would prefer over a Mediator/Voodo-combination due to my experiences with Zorro bus boards ("don't cough near the computer or something will get loose"). For IDE/SCSI you can use either the BlizzardPPC or a FastATA.
Only sound and USB might require a bus board, but a Mediator + two PCI cards would probably be cheaper than some (quite rare, especially as far as USB is considered) Zorro cards. Luckily, I never felt the need for either of these.
Before that, I'll probably stick with either plain AGA or install a Mediator.
I'd stay clear of the Zorro bus board. 15 years ago, it might have been an option worth considering - but today, it's not worth the headeache IMHO.
