your exactly right Ian,

you can dig for hours about all this technical crap but at the end of the day when it comes to actually playing live, things like that let fly and go un noticed. its not a form of being lazy or unprofessional, i would say your being more professional in a way as you are controlling the arrangement in real time other than playing along with a backing song...

instrument changes, pitch bends, modulation and other realtime controls are still easy to use while in arranger mode, you just need to perfect your timing and skills, and that makes a good musician!

Nick