As some one said, the AWE64 is just fine for what it does. Like all sound cards made within the past five years, its sound quality (signal to noise ratio and frequency response) is more than adequate for all but professional users. Its wavetable is good (even though wavetable synthesis is more or less obsolete these days.) And unless you have a decent 4 speaker setup, you won't get much benefit from the 3D positional audio on the SB Live or Vortex cards.
So I'd say, stick with the AWE64.
Modus