Eq, I've seen the G600 and it definitely falls under the crappy home keyboard category, no matter how much it costs.

About the samples. You said:
"a workstation contains lots of onboard sounds which attempt to replicate the sounds from *real* musical instruments."

True, but so does a whole bunch of synthesizers too. It's called sample playback. This isn't exclusive to workstations. The guy might not need the onboard sequencer or fx. Right?

Just look at my first post, newvie (heh a typo in your name?). Synthesizers come with all kinds of synthesis. Including realistic samples of acoustic instruments. You just need to decide on the extras.

-tek