Rikki,
AJ answered us both in one post, talk about efficiency. Thanks AJ.

I tried a demo version of Plugsound, they call it plugsound free, and it has a limited subset of the original sounds. They claim things like 6-8 MB for piano and copious amouns of memory for the other instruments as well, but I wasn't very pleased comparing to HyperCanvas. Going to try again though.

I am only playing at home AJ, so I am in no particular need for different sample sets to get the best of everything. A good GM GS, (wish that XG softsynth didn't have that lag), will probably suffice.

Going to search this KVR site soon
Thanks again, Theodore.

What about the subjective quality of soft synths? Are they generally better than the hardware ones?