Tony
I agree Technics had a lot of good things in certain areas and fell behind in others.
I used to have a KN1000 which I sold to my father in law in case I wanted it back. He want's to keep it though. Anyway, there were some sounds on there that were very outstanding. The clarinet, the Lionel Hampton sounding vibes, and many other solo voices were great. They were not a clean sound. Kind of dirty actually, but it made them sound like the real thing pretty much.
I hope Yamaha has upraded the vibes sound to sound as good as the old KN1000 instead of that thin sound they are noted for, to me on that instrument.
To me, just like when I played a lot of trumpet, it was all in the tone. If you had the right tone and could do something with those notes using different inflections you had something. I approach keyboards the same way. Feeling used with inflection will beat out technique every time, to me. It will not make up for no technique, but the two combined is what makes it IMHO.
How often I've heard excellent piano players play an arranger keyboard and then they swith to a horn, horn section or guitar and they play it with the exact same touch and licks as piano being totally out of charachter of the other sounds.
The right sound will inspire you to greater heights in playing.