Actually it seems like the Motif ES is doing more playing than Alan is in many cases. All those arps makes it look like the Motif ES is designed especially for people who want to hold down chords and let the keyboard do the walking. But I'm not being critical - in fact, looking at my own long-term needs I am probably in the market for a Motif ES 8 myself for my studio. I need something to compliment my 9000 Pro, which looks like it'll continue to be my main stage keyboard for the foreseeable future, and do the commercial music bed stuff I need - much of which seems to be celtic-atmospheric-techno non-music these days which I can see those arps doing very well. Plus, thanks to my experiments with the 9000 Pro, I have a small collection of the PLG expansion cards for the Motif ES anyway so I'm in bed with the new Motif by a couple of steps as it is. And the Motif has existing OPT voice editors for Sonar that I could use, plus it has control-surface features that my softsynths could use. It also has a good user-base to compare notes with that includes Yamaha engineers (motifator.com), and if I ever need to "dress to kill" on stage the Motif ES and the 9000 Pro together along with my Motion Sound KP-200s amp would do it.

It's funny because I wouldn't consider the original Motif for the same reasons I don't like the PA1-X Pro: limited polyphony. So my polyphony-prejudice isn't just just aimed at Korg (and I don't like Tritons for the same reason). It takes a lot to impress me enough to spend upwards of three grand on a keyboard and the Motif ES impresses me more every day.