A question included in such things is always the amount of blockIDs. I guess a damage-value should do it?
You underestimate the power of TileEntitys. It would "only" require some code and spent time, nothing in the regard of sprites (except for GUI and eventually "broken machine textures") or ids.
Hmmm, seems like a great idea. I give a +1.
Gonna go off topic for a sec. Couldn't this be tied in with the "upgrade" idea thrown around here every now and then? Say another GUI that shows the circuit and one more slot for the upgrade item? Just a thought.
Now that I think about it a similar idea to this was posted a while back but I like this one much better.
[UPDATE:] Added a new poll. Problem is it still shows the old results 
I'm working on it. Let me know what you think!
