The trick is, the hardware and sounds don't HAVE to be upgraded for a T3/G70?PA2Xpro to already sound impressive.

The MS, in the opinion of many here (based on hearing the factory demos), DOES...

I'll take 3-400MB of world class, carefully crafted, fine tuned sample ROM over 34GB of mismatched, second-class slung together stuff any day. An arranger is the gestalt of all it's parts. Sounds and styles and OS acting as one. A weakness in any one area (yet alone two) can bring it's usefulness OOTB crashing down, and force you to spend months of work and many thousands of dollars in VSTi's to fix the problem (if you have the considerable skill needed to fix the problem which few, IMO, do).

Most of us want to buy a car, not BUILD it... We are drivers, not engineers. Future expansion is a wonderful thing, but only if it comes built on a foundation of already acceptable performance, especially at THOSE prices. When you start out costing more than a T3, one expects it to ALREADY sound better than the poor 'closed' arranger, and then you build from there. Not have to build from the ground up just to attempt to equal the 'closed' system...