Since you have a firepod, there's no need for a mixer, IMO you have plenty of I/O in the firepod to leave connections permanently attached and you simply select which Input channels you want 'live' in your recording software. If you want to cut down on potential wear and tear on the combo XLR/quarter inch inputs, simply patch them to a patch bay and use the patch bay for the connect/disconnect. There's really no reason to put the mixer in play - and it will add in a small amount of noise into the signal chain.

As Mac does suggest, the patch bay can be useful.

Here's the deal however - A used Firepod can be purchased for roughly $200. Instead of worrying yourself about plugging in wearing out the inputs and going through the hassle of the patch bay, just buy another Firepod for backup in case the inputs wear out (which they likely won't).

You are going to spend at least $200 for all of the patch XLR cables and the patch bay itself.

As for your 3 external hardware boxes:

You can still 'permanently' route the output of the Boss into a pair of inputs on the Firepod. If it were me, I would use the Boss as a 're-amp' kind of a setup, where you can plug your guitar into one of the instrument inputs on the Firepod, record it clean, and send a pair of the Firepod outs, to ins of the Boss, and then back into a different pair of the Firepod inputs. If I'm not mistaken, you can direct monitor the Firepod inputs, on some of the Firepod outputs - these would be the outputs I would route to the Boss.

Same goes for the Helicon.

Same goes for the GI-20, except if you are using MIDI, you can route the GI-20 Midi Outs permanently into the PreSonus MIDI in, then take the GI-20 audio outs and 'permanently' plug them into inputs on the Firepod.

I see no need for a mixer or patchbay in your case, but racking all of it up in a simple rack would be useful for you likely and keep the cleanest signal path for all of it.

Worrying about wearing out the inputs on a sub $200 device seems unnecessary.

I plugged in/out of my Presonus Firebox countless times and never had an issue with it.

-Scott

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