Since I started to think about shrinking my 16-track mobile recording
setup to a more easy to carry laptop based solution, I ended up finding
the Presonus Firepod.

From what I've read and listened to (also downloaded example recordings
from various sources) I'm quite convinced regarding the audio quality,
but I need a minimum of 16 channels of audio (44.1/48kHz, 24Bit)

Do you have experience with 2 Firepods on one Firewire port?

Can Firewire handle 20 channels recording simultaneously? How about a
third card?

Will I need a separate Firewire port if I want to hook up a hard disk
with the 2 Firepods?

Do you know how the Firepod compares to the Aardvark Q10 in terms of
sound quality, ease-of-use, etc. (I currently use two Aardvark Q10s
with a desktop PC and I like them a lot)

Is there anything I'd need to watch in order make sure the two cards
are in sync? (e.g. give up one of the S/PDIFs for sync purposes)