I would guess that Roland still shows it as current on their website because many retailers and distributors still have them in stock. It may be part of their sales/marketing agreement. IMO Roland's biggest problem is that they don't seem to have an equal share of "shelf time." Every keyboard store is loaded with Yamaha, maybe Casio, and occasionally Korg. It's been YEARS since I've seen a new Roland for sale in a retail store.
I had a BK-5 for a short while. I liked it better than the Prelude (although the Prelude has a full sequencer, if this matters to you.) The BK-5's control layout is pretty good for real-time use. It's less bewildering than the E-A7.
One feature it has which the E-A7 lacks, is that it depicts the inversion of the current chord on a graphical piano keyboard at the bottom of the display. Despite having two screens, in photos of the E-A7 I don't see anything like this. Not sure why they dropped this useful feature, but Roland has a long history of dropping some features and then adding new ones.
Last year I saw a few BK-5s sell for insanely low prices on some popular auction sites. A few years from now the BK-5 will make an excellent budget arranger for someone just getting started. Much better than a new Casio or PSR!
Edited by TedS (04/28/20 09:13 AM)