A little OT, but Bill I didn't think customers in the US (or anywhere) had input into Roland's development. The BK-9 was extremely rare here in the US and its development was pretty much abandoned with some pernicious bugs still present in the O.S. It seems like every time Roland moves onto a new series, they fire the old development team and reinvent the wheel. This introduces new bugs, and sometimes desireable features go missing. Very frustrating.

As for Lowrey, they did make a few keyboards in the 1980s I think (teeny Genie, Micro Genie, etc.) I hope someone licenses the intellectual property rights to their intelligent chord system. It was useful and pretty good--nearly as good as Roland's IMO.

As Don said, I'm not interested in a $20,000 piece of furniture. But arrangers are 85% software and 15% thoughtful ergonomics. If the Lowrey software and some of the control interface (like the touch strip) live on, all is not lost!