Bill, you and I are saying many of the same things, you perhaps better. One thing the members here simply will not acknowledge, is that this board is probably not representative of the TOTAL arranger market in terms of home player vs. working pro. If you profiled the average arranger player (in America), you would probably find a middle-aged, middle class guy that quit taking music lessons when he was nine and can now afford to buy his way into giving the appearance of being a competent (even amazing) musician without going through the agony of actually learning how to play. A surefire way of being the hit of the party (man, that's one long run-on sentence).

Further, he has not fully figured out all the options on his car's nav unit and still can't program the VCR. He's figured out his cell phone but only after his son or daughter has set it up for him. Fat fingers has severely limited his ability to text message. He has to read the manual twice each time he has to reset his clock radio.

To this guy, that screenshot of the Mediastation with 10 VST's open will look like the schematics of the space shuttle. Nothing wrong with technology but as Diki noted, it will have to be implemented in the background with the same kind of one-button-push simplicity that exists today. That is why, despite their technological superiority, units like the Mediastation will probably always have a limited market and trail the big three who have been successful by embracing the KISS principle for this particular market.

Music rules, technology assists.

chas