One thing that has not been mentioned when playing with the "dreaded" "awful" "fake" SMF (which sounds awesome if you have talent, and the right keyboard (i.e. sound source).

I play gigs where the "just like the record" sound is a big advantage for 2 types of audience.

1. Professional/semi-professional dancers (Ballroom, Rock n Roll, Latin etc) who are often used to rehearsing their routines to "Canned music" - CD's of course - and we go to great lengths to reproduce these arrangements live.

2. Young people who are in fact quite discerning (and at the same time - boring) in the fact they want the music/arrangement/production/quality of sounds to be JUST like the record (or re-mix on occasion which we also cater for).

My point?

There is an "art" or perhaps "discipline" to playing along to EXACT and STRICT sequences, instead of doing the arrangement how you feel at the time.
We have to remember (or at least use lyric/chord sheets) the EXACT song arrangement for, what, half a dozen different Genres (Jazz, Top 40, Latin Rock n Roll Country etc etc).

That ain't easy!

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