Hi MusikMan,

That's a difficult question to answer as it involves personal taste to some degree. I find that the 740 is more ergonomic for my needs which is why I chose it over the 2000. The laptop/XGworks/740 system is an excellent match because the display and the access to the synth is limited. With my updates to XGworks I get access to just about the whole synth and the laptop is like an extended display, never mind all the extra facilities in XGworks. When you move up to the 2000 and above you get more access to the synth on the display but not all of it. XGworks will fill in the gaps but you still need the updates as it has nothing at all for the 2000 and not much for any of the other PSRs. It's still a good match but there are 15 more basic effects in the 2000 which XGworks can't handle properly due to limitations in its design. For anything with more than five DSPs (such as the 9000) there are even more limitations. Also, the XG editor only generates Yamaha sysex so it wouldn't be much good for other manufacturers' keyboards.

Bryan