I use the Audigy in my workstation and I've test driven early audigy products for notebooks. My next notebook card will be an audigy. I don't know of anything else that offers similar specs at the same price.
But what you said about the software is true. Many people have problems with it, and I had problems with it. But you don't need ANY of the software to run the Audigy. When you install, install DRIVERS ONLY. This is all you need. In the install screen, there is ONE button for dirves, and the 20 or 30 other buttons are for software that could cause you problems.
The one remaing hangup comes with disabling system sound. Your notebook has an onboard squeaky toy that will try to play music by default. The install process MIGHT take care of that, but if you can't get it to work, look in your BIOS under "system sound" and try disabling that.
Once your computer sees the card properly, MC will see the card, and you're off and running! MC11 will set up playlists and give you replay gain and EQ functions.
Between the two models you mentioned, the NX looks slightly better. You want to make sure that the box has RCA lineouts, which the NX looks like it does, while the LIVE probably does. This is the most direct and cleanest connection to "regular" amps.