But seriously a PCI-X soundcard is not in my future. That one you linked is $100, lacks a bracket and a breakout box, and as you said does way more than basic sound. I will stick with USB. Its just easier.
"enhance your retro box with this soundcard" says seller, selling an audio interface (not really a "soundcard") without a breakout.
Interfaces deal with low latency multichannel I/O and have DSPs.
The entry level interfaces are attractive for non-DAW people because they have better sound quality than their consumer soundcard counterparts. And they deal with about a pair of stereo ins and outs, digital and analog, so you don't pay premium for things you don't use. 0404 is based on EMU chip which is present in Creative Sound Blasters too, Delta uses a common VIA chip. But they don't have amps and analogue circuits are high quality, connectors are gold plated, unbalanced and stuff like that. Buying one of these instead of consumer counterpart will get you better sound quality overall, in games or whatever.
But as a "sound guy" I dropped 300 euros for Orpheus which I used for maybe an hour since then, because AWE64 Value, which I've used for about two hours total, has very unclean signal that I don't tolerate. That's my area for crazy