I honestly believe there are exactly five current-series consoles worth consideration for live sound reinforcement applications:
Soundcraft GB8 (when entry-level techs are likely to be around and need analog)
What about the GB8 makes it specifically worthy of consideration over the other similarly priced and featured consoles on the market (A&H GL2800, Yamaha IM-8, Crest HP-Eight, etc)? I like the GB8 but I am unclear on why it is the one and only analogue console larger than a MixWiz that is worth looking at. For example, the GL2800 is similarly priced and has more aux sends and is much more useful as a monitor console or FOH versus the GB8 which is really only good at FOH. I also don't really see how the MixWiz, SL, or 01V96 could be compared to an LS9 which costs several orders of magnitude more and offers vastly larger functionality then any of them.