M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496 Driver

Under Leopard 10.5.4 on a Quicksilver 2002 Dual 1GHz G4.

What might cause driver helpers to load one Startup, and not the next? poor programming by the developer (M-Audio/Avid)? How can I convince them of such?

Seems like I get a semi-random kp, and sometimes a Blue Screen, and the system log almost always says it stops logging at one of the items in the folder:

/Library/StartupItems/M-Audio PCI Audio Helper

e.g. /Library/StartupItems/M-Audio PCI Audio Helper/MAudioDeltaHT.kext
or /Library/StartupItems/M-Audio PCI Audio Helper/MAudioDeltaFamily.kext

A Restart usually "fixes" the issue ... it loads to the Desktop and the audio card seems functional.

I have stripped down my QS 2002 Dual 1GHz RAM 512MB to only include the one PCI card in addition to the video card (I want to add back my Rosewill NIC 10/100/1000 and my Sonnet Tango USB1/FW400):

AGP Slot1 ATI Radeon 9800Pro
PCI Slot2 empty
PCI Slot3 empty
PCI Slot4 M-Audio Delta Audiophile 2496
PCI Slot5 empty

The M-Audio folks have somewhat given up on me since "no one else is reporting such issues" ...

Here's a link to the M-Audio thread where I went though a lot with them:
http://forums.m-audio.com/showthread.php?t=3856

Suggestions?

As a professional musician, I need audio In/Out of at least this promised quality of the M-Audio 2496.

I admit ... the card was purchased in March 2003, and had been used in a couple of settings. Maybe its just worn out? Sometimes?