Nios Newb & new project - where to start?

I am going to be designing a controller which will need to send some serial commands out to a 'box', sample 24 analog voltages & perform a least-means-square fit on the voltages, and repeat this process at rates up to 100 times a second. I will need a memory card interface to read the commands which will be stored on a memory card, an Ethernet (and/or USB) interface to connect to a GUI on a PC for user control if not reading from the memory card, and want a simple memory-mapped I/O interface for reading the converted analog voltages. I was thinking I would implement the 24 channels of A/D conversion with state machines, latch the values in, and set up a simple adress decoder to read the values into the processor for the LMS fit. I will be using 12-bit A/D converters, so I was thinking a 16-bit controller would work out nicely...

I am not new to Quartus/Altera,and am not new to microcontrollers, but have never tried to used the Nios II processor in a design. I was going to a year or so ago, and my boss bought myself and a co-worker kits, but they were sorely lacking in instructional material (IMHO) and tech support couldn't even point us to materials (we have paid subscriptions w/Altera).

I would still like to learn how to implement a Nios II design, and use it in my project. I have access to DE1 and DE2 boards/kits. Can you guys point me to the correct tutorials for a hardware designer?

Also, is there a Single-Board Computer out there anywhere that is based on a NiosII processor design and will meet my requirements above? Can I use a DE1 or DE2 board for this application (although I'd like something a bit smaller & wihtout all the lights/switches/gizmos)? I will be putting the A/D's on a daughter card, and so am looking for access to the main I/O bus for memory mapping...

Thanks in advance for any help!!!