I don't get one simple thing. If 76-keys keyboard is so unprofitable to Yamaha, why don't they discourage their demonstrators (or et least one of them) to use them.

In all official Yamaha demos of Motif line (ES, XS) except Motif Rack, they use 76-key version. They might hook up 76-keys version Motif to the Rack as well, but it would seem strange, and I guess connecting it to Roland controller was out of the question, so they used S-90 ES. :-)

Another strange thing is, producing 88-keys hammer-weighted keyboard version of synths (Yamaha MO-8 and MM-8), and arrangers (Korg Pa-588). What's so good in having weighted keyboard for piano playing only, while having hundreds of other instruments virtualy unplayable because of keyboard?

Although 76-keys are compromise in both directions (less keys and lighter touch then 88, while being longer and heavyer then 61), it still looks better then hammer-wieghted synth, that lets You play piano only (and pads).

Recently, on more then one occasion I saw Yamaha Motif on stage in TV shows (here in Croatia), most of the time it was ES7 (and now XS7), and 88 keys version (ES8) I saw only once or twice when used exclusively for piano playing, and they always had other 76-keys synth for playing non-piano sounds.