Scott, I think it's more ignorance than snobbishness. The musicians come into the music store and don't even go into the department where the Arrangers are kept. They think of them as toys, like the old Cascios were. Also a lot of the music store personnel do not understand the arrangers and treat them as lesser devices.
But, when a musician comes into the club where I play, they want to see what it is that's making the music. When they see that it is just one keyboard, there is no disrespect; rather, they marvel at how one person can make the music without the use of sequences or recordings.
People with "class", whether they are musicians or not, will give credit where it is due. Those without class are not worth worrying about in the first place.
Maybe, eventually, there will be enough Arranger exposure in the U.S. to reach the European acceptance level.
I began using Arrangers around 1987. I believe the first one was a Yamaha PSR 70! I used an external drum machine, and a DX7 midied to a Yamaha Piano Module. From there it was PSR6100, maybe a 6300?, Technics KN800, 1000, 2000, PSR 500, 510, 620, KN5000, Roland G800, PSR 8000, Solton X1, PSR 740, and now PSR 9000. That's roughly one per year!
The first keyboard where the external units could reasonably be eliminated was the KN2000. I still maintain it is one of the finest arranger keyboards ever produced.
DonM