In the strange world of things, I am about to become a sort of a consultant on a new high School theatre (backround only at this time). I checked with a supplier and said that the ETC Ion and a Marquee board are the current 'in' boards for high school theatres, the Ion being less expensive.
I recently called ETC on an unrelated issue, but did mention I would not consider buying a Smatfade until they put a monitor out jack on it. They are thinking about it.
The Marquee is a Horizon software console. With the big Genlyte merger, Strand is now part of the family and has taken the Marquee/Horizon software and modified if for all their new Palette and Light Palette consoles. As far as I know, the Marquee has remained essentially the same with only software upgrades. I would definitely take a good look at Strand over the Marquee at this point. It doesn't make much sense to me for Genlyte to keep Marquee in existence now that they've totally converted the Strand products to the Horizon software. Why keep spending money on a lesser known product that competes with your flagship line? My guess is Marquee will vaporize soon.
On the other hand, the Ion is a pretty slick little board with that top of the line service reputation of ETC behind it. The two boards are very different concepts. So get some demos! The nice thing about Strand over Marquee (or ETC) is that there are many varieties of consoles with the same software to choose from. ION on the other hand is the scaled down version of EOS and very much in the powerful obsession family programming wise. The add on wing panels make Ion pretty slick. Get some hands on demos.