It may be impertinent, but the above exchange really does prompt me to ask. 

What price difference would it have made to the BabyFace if RME had elected to use the full-spec PGA2500 rather than the reduced-spec PGA2505?   The choice would not appear to have required change in any other components.  (Please correct me if I am wrong.)

I can understand that it may have cut across, say, the UC/UCX, marketing-wise.  Considering the 3dB vs 1dB increments, the 5dB worse noise and the 5db reduction in maximum gain, we are not arguing about sheep stations, performance-wise.  But the improvement in performance at what, (based on publicly available information), appears to be a couple dollars increase in component cost (at the 1000+ rate), suggests some interesting design discussions must have occurred between the marketers and the engineers..

However, one cannot change history.  But maybe the BabyFace II?