Grenville,
You can ask ANYONE on this board, especially Leslie and they will tell you my distaste for Brother, although I understand its usefulness. I don't like it BECAUSE it faxes to TIFF.
I have three fax servers all of which fax directly to PDF. All of them will allow PC to fax.
All of them allow fax forward and fax to email and email to fax. I don't see the need to have the intermediate step of using email to route the faxes.
Almost all halfway expensive MFCs out there will fax directly to PDF and will allow PC to fax out. I am not sure what the confusion is here.