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I decided to return that card to the retailer and I'll be ordering something with a little more umph. I'm thinking the XONAR Essence STX PCIe Sound Card looks pretty promising. Though I'll lose my ability to connect my controller via midi, I suppose I could just buy a PCI controller for that, or try the USB2 plug on the MP10.

Don't get anything that fits inside a computer chassis. That is the worst type. You need a little box that connects via USB or Firewire. This will have "real" jacks and real control knobs and if you are lucky LEDs to indicate level. and also a good build in headphone amp. One that keeps being recommended is this:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AudioBoxUSB
The above site is not a bad place to buy it either. They have excellent tech sort (the store has a large recording studio on-site so their people have experience) and free extended warranty and free shipping. (the video ad is great, they run over the little box with a truck)

The other good thing about USB/Firewire is when you replace the computer you can keep this.

How did you pick the Asus card? You are shopping at the wrong store. Go to a place where they sell musical instruments, pianos, microphones and such. Don't bother with PC video game equipment.

I guess from my perspective as an IT Administrator, I’m having a difficult time understanding how an external device could be superior in performance to an internal card,

I can understand an external box being superior in terms of overall audio functionality, but in terms of performance and efficiency I don’t quite buy it. At the end of the day, the only thing I’m looking for the device to do is process the audio produced by the Ivory 2 library,

You say "as an IT Administrator". So yu are thinking in terms of data. But now try to think like an electrical engineer who works on analog equipment designs. Al the important parts of the audio interface are analog that is that part the where a $900 box differs for a $35 box

Yes. most of the advantage of the external box is user facing features. But also the box can have "real" size jacks, for example 1/4 TRS one per channel.

Also the inside of a digital computer is electrically very noisy. The power supply is "horrible" and noisy as they get. Typically the PCI card is not even in a shielded box. it is just a bare PCB card.

And then in the real world, the external boxes are simply made to better specs. It does not have to be that way but it is. What matters is the analog circuits that live between the jacks and the digital part. The good external boxes will use discreet transistors and/or larger better opamps. Little things like the physical size of a resistor determine it's noise floor. (has to do with the statistics of large numbers) Physically larger is best.

Also a physical/analog volume control knob has a real effect on sound quality. You need a real analog volume control some place in your system. Any digital control, say with a mouse. Has to reduce dynamic range. It controls volume by doing "math" on the samples reducing their range. For best dynamic range you have to leave all the digital controls at max and use an analog volume control. It is easier to do that with an external box.

All that said the bottleneck in your sound is likely (1) the speakers and (2) the room acoustics. I doubt you are yet to the point where the power supply that drives to D/A converter is the limiting factor. And most of these fine point apply to recording not playback. We can stand non-perfection in playback.

Jacks and cables do matter and the little slot in the back of a PC is just not big enough for the better connectors and cables so they have to use 1/8" stereo and RCA. No room for XLR or 1/4" phone. the 1/8th inch plug may not be a problem but the tiny cable is. Cable capacitance the resistance is determined by physical size. It's just physics

There is a lot more theory. Things like the over all temperature of the enclosure

Lastly look who makes this stuff and the experience of the company and the company "culture". All the engineers are competent but if you spend your life doing only pro audio and hanging out around recording studios you think different from an engineer who does computers and audio as a side line. Not only that your boss and his boss think differently too if they have grown up around audio

I'm still tweaking the sounds, I feel like I prefer the Steinway over the Bosendorfer, and certainly over the Yamaha...but the sounds a little warm for my taste.