Is a CF and IDE adapter still the recommended way to go?
Yes.
I have a spare 60G SSD (SATA) and an IDE adapter I had been considering swapping in
Unfortunately, SATA won't work, even with a fancy adapter.
I think that's the one in my "Daily driver" empeg and it's been working well. The other two might work fine too, but they don't have any "support" around the casing of the CF card, so vibrations will wiggle the card. I liked that Syba one because it was shaped exactly like an IDE drive and so it mounted perfectly into the spot inside the empeg. (though it takes up more physical space than is strictly needed.)