While I usually use Metric Halo interfaces (utterly stunning sound quality with great features, but pricey and Mac only. Metric Halo is the Alembic of the audio interface world), I've found that the very latest MBoxes are pretty good. I got one of the basic MBox 3's for my study and it does quite well and have used it for some two track classical recording. I also liked the Apogee Duet 2, but I sold it because I wanted to have s/pdif input and output along with the analog channels. My suspicion is that both sound better than the focusrite, but I have no real evidence to back that up.
I would also not bother with PT9 if you are purchasing new. PT10 is much more stable and has some better features. It's possible that there are some MBox/ProTools bundle deals to be had out there. However, beware and do not get the older MBoxes. They were pretty bad.