Re. cloning on the 2488, I stand corrected. Seems it's only pairs-to-singles you can't do, which makes sense

, not vice-versa... was only going by what the manual says under Clone Track: "
Dst. Trk This sets the destination track or tracks to which the source track is cloned. ... If you have selected a single track, you can select tracks 1 through 24 here. If you have selected a pair of tracks (for instance, 1/2), you can only select track pairs here."
Re. DP-32, the term 'track' does seem a bit mis-leading. Stereo uses 2 audio signals, so the track-count depends on whether you regard stereo as 1 or 2 'tracks'. I think Tascam are a bit lax here - the manual doesn't spell it out in the spec section; it's only their website which says in the Features at-a-glance section: "
8 mono tracks + 12 mono/stereo selectable tracks", so you can have up to 20 mono tracks.
I suppose the 20 faders should have flagged warning signs if you really wanted 32 independant tracks, but it's water under the bridge now

The dp-24 has 18 track faders but these are fixed for the "
12 mono tracks + 6 stereo tracks", so at least you've got another 8 monos, or double the no. of stereos, which to me is worth having.
Much prefer dedicated stereo tracks (for stereo sources) as there's only one set of controls. Simulating it on 2 monos (as you have to on a lot of h/w mixers which never seem to have enough stereo inputs) is a pain when adjusting gain, EQ, aux sends etc.