asterisk users - Oct 2004 - Asterisk and Alcatel 4200 -- comments, anyone?

I asked earlier about E1 channel banks, and have since learned
from telephone people here in Europe that they are not really
widely used over here -- that probably explains why they are
not as readily available as T1 banks.

The suggestion was made to simply use the existing PBX, in our
case an Alcatel 4200, instead of a channel bank.

Has anybody done this, and can give advice or any other comments?

Thanks,

Wolf Paul