Hello Scott,
Since I gig with midi accordion and keyboards, I've owned and used modules since the early '90's. I was first introduced to midi modules via the Solton products and I don't recall if the early modules were patterned after any Solton boards. My next piece was the Korg i5m which had better sounds and styles than the Soltons of the time. I also used a Korg i5s which was the board that the i5m was modeled after. From there I went to the Korg i40m which was something between the is40 and i30, of which I owned both. I miss the i30 - touch screen, sliders and wonderful styles and sounds and my is40 just died about a month ago. I also used a Roland RA-800, which was patterned after the G-800 and I had the G-600 board. Both had good styles but difficult to navigate on gigs and the sounds, I thought, were not as good as the Korg i40m. Several years ago, I had a hard drive installed in the i40 so it now can hold about 7,000 files and has editing and sequencing features, is easy to navigate, is very light - about 9 lbs or so, and I've been using it for about the 7 years now. For a stand, I use a sturdy music stand as I usualy play standing or on a high stool. I recently purchased a Gem Genesys XP module which I think, has the most features of any module on the market today. It's comparable to the Genesys Pro and S series keyboards. I haven't been able to spend much time with it since I bought it, so I'll reserve commentary on it - I hope to have it gig ready in about 2 weeks. Over the past couple of weeks, I've had several large outdoor gigs - Italian festivals, company picnics and the like. I've used my Korg PA1XPRO as a module for the midi accordion, a Master MK4 controller and I had the keys at the ready. I'd love to have a PA1XPRO module and I hope the Genesys XP measures up to the PRO. I spoke to a person at Yamaha about the likelyhood of a Yammie arranger module come` the T2 and he said that there is no market for it and Korg said pretty much the same about a PA module. In terms of arranger modules, I think that if the Genesys XP lives up to what I've heard and read about it, It'll easily be on top of the list followed by the MidJay then the rest Orla, Techniques et al.
Ciao,
Jerry