Bill
Nice post and good info but the one flaw I see is the two companioes you mention cater to the home organist, not the younger preforming musicians. Moon River on a 20K digital organ is fine if thats what you want but the manufactures need to go more after the new crop of players out there.
Just a "simple and fast" way to program your own backing tracks or convert SMFs to Styles would be a big step forward.
Adding new sound sets according to your playing needs woud also be some starter ideas. My BK9 has some SN voices, why can't I get or even buy more to add to the keyboard.
You can convert SMFs to Styles in about 10 seconds on Korg PA4X. Not all perfect but a lot of them are very good.