The MC909 is NOT just a little groove box. This is a very good piece of kit to use for a live PA.
I came very very close to getting one of these myself, as a mate of mine uses one and I got to have a good play.
As an all in one production tool, I would advise against it. You`ll get more professional results from a laptop, a soft studio and a midi controller like the behringer bcf2000.
However for a beginners workstation it would be fine, but really it seems to work best as a live performance tool and I`d be happy to use one if I hadn`t gone down the ableton road.