There's a slight problem with this, though, Donny... Do you know why Detroit won't make a car that will last for 100 years? That's right, everybody would buy one, and then never buy another car again!

Continued development of a product is based on sales. The money that comes in pays for the NEXT improvement. Now, what happens when you buy an open keyboard, that you never have to buy another keyboard with? Where does the money come from for these improvements you want? It isn't coming in from new keyboard sales, that's for sure!

What's the non-musician equivalent of the open arranger? Yep, the computer. But the computer model isn't that you buy a computer, and then you never have to buy another one, merely keep updating the software. If this were the case, there wouldn't BE any innovation in computers, we would already have all we need... In fact, for many people, the computer is the one piece of gear they update the MOST. And the sales that that constant upgrading generates pays for the innovation that makes you WANT to upgrade.

Remind you of anything? Yep, closed arrangers! Every new feature is payed for by the sale of the previous generation, then incorporated into the new, you go out and buy it, and that pays for the NEXT new feature. But take that sale out of the picture, what pays for the innovation?

Let's paint a picture, and assume that open arrangers are bought by everyone that can use them (which, as technical to operate as they are, is still, IMO, a tiny part of the total market). Now, after that saturation point, what pays for innovation in its' OS? What pays for continued improvement? What pays for Dom's breakfast, once all those that ARE going to buy one, do?

Planned obsolescence is what drives the computer industry. I'm not sure that without this, a keyboard manufacturer (a tiny, tiny industry compared to just about anything you can think of) can survive. From what I read here, it seems that a large portion of the membership turns over their arranger every three years or so, maybe a bit longer, but I know I am considered an oddity expecting ten years or so out of an arranger! But just imagine where the industry would be if we ALL kept our arrangers that long... Sales would only be a FRACTION of where they are now. How many features we take for granted today would not have been developed, because the R&D money would be a fraction, too?

Extrapolate that onto the open keyboard concept, and the rosy picture of a never-ending improvement path, without a never-ending hardware upgrading path (not mere componentry, but the entire arranger) may not be what you anticipate.