Super Natural Sounds have been on the top end Roland Ateliers for a couple of years now, and are happily received by the home market.

SA1/2 is just sample layer switching, which has been available and used in the pro market for years. (The early ones were called Legato voices)

GM = General Midi is a standard that specifies a certain feature set that is common to all Midi compatible instruments, therefore the standard would need to modified by the Midi standards committee to allow all the new articulation controls to be added. (The last update to the Midi standard was about 10 years ago so it’s about time they did something)

Articulation switching in the pro market (VSTs etc.) does not use buttons, but keys that are unused on the keyboard. (For example; A Sax only has a limited range of notes that can be played on them, therefore in the pro market only these ranges are produced leaving the other notes free for articulation switching)

Bill