By breouwsing to /etc I just found about 10 temporary files from sndconfig (/etc/sndconfig-XXXX). This is a mess, the files should be created in /tmp such that they eventually get removed.
The solution to all of this for any remotely recent card is to fix the kernel drivers... then sndconfig is irrelevant. But I digress.
Will be fixed in 0.67-1.