this would be a nice time to educate me on the real advantage i would
have of spending USD350 on the RNC. (after i pay customs in india)

If i were to have the RNC i would use it during tracking. There was
this other thread which stated that taming peaks during tracking in a
well setup digital domain was quite pointless, as tere is actually
enough headroom to record reasonable levels withought clipping, and use
a good plugin afterwards.

Since the RNC is also very transparent, i doubt one can relly use it to
add color.

thanks
Sidhu