Yes I agree that in some respect you must get pass the playing to evaluate the sounds and styles.
But the player has a great part in helping the listener appreciate the sounds and styles.
If you had someone play a T2 SA voice but did not know how to play and use techniques that would exploit the SA technology, the sound would sound like an average voice.

If the player does not have good coordination between left hand and right hand and chooses the correct playing technique for a particular style, it will give the listener a negative experience with the style.

Take Diki’s demo of the G70 for example. Although the choice of style was random and no preparation was made before playing, as a skill and talented musician, he knew what was appropriate to do on that style.

He knew when to play busy and when to play sparsely so that the style would be appreciated.
I am quite confident, someone else could have done the same thing as Diki did on the G70, and not do a good job of it.


And yes the mediastation is an arranger in the same way the T2 and G70 is. It is just that the mediastation is geared to a different arranger market.