Bottom line is that 95% of those kids are also too technically challenged to use an MS, and already are doing EXACTLY what they want to with their laptops and home computers. As we watch the gigging scene basically disappear (I'm talking about PAID gigs, which is how you can afford a TOTL keyboard!), what's the POINT of a gigging VSTi setup?

Maybe in your area it's different, but here, no kids are replacing the older players and playing modern loop based music in commercial venues. Only DJ's are doing that. And they are laptop jockeys to a man.

When the price of open keyboards drops down to comparable with a closed one, whether arranger or WS, WITH ALL THE CONTENT, perhaps you'll see an upswing. But when you factor in the cost of the TOTL VSTi's you are going to need to make it sound TOTL, it all starts to get outside the budget of the kids (who are hit harder by the recession than their older brethren).

My mind isn't closed by any means. My eyes are wide open to all the potential pitfalls, hidden costs, and prodigious skill needed to make a barebones keyboard the equal of a MoXS, Oasys, or even a PA2Xpro. To be honest, the only ones with closed minds round here are those who have convinced themselves that newer MUST be better, despite the fact that none of them yet has managed to make quality music on it that they aren't ashamed to post...

To 'close' your mind off to point after point of reasoned objection, and to resort to taunt and slander rather than example, all the time without the slightest SHRED of evidence that you actually DO know how this stuff all works in practice is the height of hypocrisy. The closed mind of the open arranger user...

While you continue to write and write, rather than play and play, that's all the proof I need that my opinion is the correct one.