Jed, I've heard the same thing you have about phantom power. I would dearly like to know the truth of the matter. The user's manuals for my Mackie mixing board (which offers "all or nothing" phantom power) and my Roland hard disk recorder (same) both caution against using the phantom power if you are also going to be plugging in non-phantom-powered microphones or other equipment. I'd be thrilled if I could ignore this warning, but haven't dared to try. Any techies out there know the real story?

As for DI's, my favorite for acoustic guitar is the SansAmp Acoustic DI. It's pricey (street price around $175.00), but it provides lots of tone-shaping capabilities, phantom power if you need it, an effects loop, and various other features. the bells and whistles are nice, but I use it for the tone -- it makes any onboard acoustic guitar pickup sound much better. But as I say, it's a lot to spend, especially if you need several. Good luck.