Wow talk about expensive. Both units you mentioned are very good sounding keyboards and have very good features as well. You'll get fairly close to equal recording ability in both for songs and styles.

The PSR-3000 will have the edge with a few sounds since it now has "mega voices". It of course is more up to date with storage mediums as well. The MZ-2000 uses the standard floppy disk (common to the time).

The MZ has a few things over the PSR-3000. It has aftertouch, style converter, real-time sliders for editing and drawbar control, better key action, and wheel quality. The MZ's voice editing is beyond several top arrangers out there today as well.

Which board would work best for you is really something for you to decide. Me personally I'd like to have both Since they're so expensive and you want to save some money I'd suggest the MZ-2000 because as you stated it's covered for a year. I would also be a little questionable about that MZ because of the issue you mentioned.

If you can afford it a brand new PSR-3000 would be good too. At least you'd know the board was "factory fresh".

Squeak