Me: I'm New to CNC but I have 25 years of IT experience. I'll admit that I'm more familiar with PC builds then electronics but I'm willing to learn

Use: Besides screwing around and just having fun building stuff, my justification for this is cutting patterns out of copper sheet. (see sig)
I know that most folks recommend starting with the arduino/gerbil build. But I have greater aspirations and hope to use this machine to build a 3d printer and some other x/y/z projects. It is my understanding that a linuxcnc setup could do all of this. Also that thing isn't shipping for almost two months. Time enough to much around with mock ups and such. So... I have no aversion to either Windows or Linux and can build a system for either. Boards with a parallel port I have or I can buy a board add on. Yes I know some of these have issues but I also know that some people have found ones that work.
Then based on the Controlling Software, what breakout board? And the part where I'm getting really confused is this. If I go with a pc based system that removes both aduino and the gshield and I replace it with a parallel breakout board and what? Is that it? I've seen very basic board all the way up to stuff like this. http://www.ebay.com/itm/CNC-5-Axis-Brea ... 3641.l6390
Which thing brings me to DSP stepper drivers. Are these needed if you go the pc route?
What would really be useful is if anyone had a detailed (ie step by step) build for a pc based system. Sorry if this is kind of a ramble. My brain is fried from cnc overload.