I'm trying to get a beginner's studio together and one of the candidates for my main controller is the CS6x, but something confuses me:

I read in S.O.S. mag that it uses a "sample-based synth engine". Pardon my ignorance, but isn't this sort of a contradiction in terms? I thought that synth engines by definition generated their own tones while samples were, well, samples. I guess I'm not overwhelmingly worried as I'll be getting a sampler in the near future and I'm more concerned with real-time control capability (i.e. lots o' knobs) than with sound quality. I was just wondering if there were any other implications of this synthesis method that I'm missing.

Also, how come there's so much more polyphany than in comparable boards like a nord lead or a virus? Is it simply that it came out later, or is there some quality that is sacrificed? And in general, can I expand this with my sampler or another sound module?

Finally, any opinions on the sampler? I understand that at 44.1kHz, it's not quite up to CD quality, but how flexible is it? Are there audio ins, or is it just that you can download WAV files? Can you map any sample across the board and tweak them with the knobs?

Feel free to suggest any other boards as well--by no means have I made my mind up.

Thanks,
Lenny