I've been looking at this board and also the newer G33T-M in a bit of detail, and found my way here...
The lack of a DVI port can be resolved with an
sVDO card, which plugs into the PCIe x16 slot and provides a DVI port for the integrated graphics. Compatiblity with Linux/X seems to be (or have been) hit-or-miss, but a well-selected card should work....
Similarly, though the 31T-M lacks an s/PIDIF-out connector, it has a header for one on the board.
frontx.com seems to have the bits you'd need to make create an s/PIDIF-out connector for it -- there's a header-to-RCA-jack cable and mount, but the header connector is wrong, you'd need to buy a 1x4 connector from them too and
replace the one on the cable to match the correct pin-out in the manual.
I've never done business with frontx.com, but they seem to have a lot of interesting cables that I've never seen elsewhere.
Of course, this stuff adds to the price of a "value" board, but for those of us running Linux and determined to have Intel graphics, rather than nVidia/ATI binary driver crap, the only choice is on-board stuff, so this isn't necessarily a useful board only because it's cheap. I don't need something to play 3D games, just a "decent" 3D accelerator and video playback with a driver that doesn't break with every kernel update.
ECS made a G31T-M3 at one point with four RAM slots that seems to be much the same board; it seems to still be available from a few vendors. Most everything on the web claims that it still supports only 4GB, though.
So I'm probably going to go with the G33M-T -- it's largely the same board but with the newer G33/ICH9, and it'll take 4x2GB RAM. ICH9 doesn't support PATA though, and ECS didn't add it, so it's SATA-only on board. :-/