thinking about moving from rack to laptop...advice please!

[Simeon Harris <simeonharris40@googlemail.com>]

ok, so my current setup is this...

triaxis preamp
tc g-force
eventide eclipse

split into 
tc d2 delay
looperlative (with kaoss pad and lexicon mpx-1 in aux sends)

all running into a rack mixer and into a mesa 20/20 poweramp and marshall cabs

i've been contemplating ditching all the rack fx and replacing them with a mac laptop (keeping the triaxis and 20/20)

my system at the moment is preset based - i have about 60 sounds available with cc pedals for variation, with the g-force and eclipse working in tandem
the lp-1 is controlled by a separate midi controller and i have a control surface as well (which also controls the d2 and lexicon)

i'd like ot be able to kinda recreate this lot in a laptop

so i'm thinking about which plugin host will work best, bearing in mind that i don't really want to have to launch loads of separate programs on startup and i need everything to be synced to midi clock and i also need to be able to control it all via midi

i'm thinking of using guitar rig for the basic fx, with extra plugins (including reaktor) for more sonic manipulation....with sooperlooper and augustus loop running in parallel and feeding more plugins

ableton live looks like a good bet, but i'd really just be using the mixer...but it's nice and stable. 

so my questions are - will i be able to set up a bunch of plugins on one midi channel and put the loopers on other channels, so i can control everything the way i am now

any other plugin hosts (for audiounits) that might be worth looking at? is mainstage worth considering?

any help would be greatly appreciated!

sim