Ian,

the styles on the 588 are the same as 800/2x. There may be a small number missing because of the lack of DNC. As far as the piano goes, he should be able to get an acceptable sound with tweaking the 16 available oscialtors. Considering that Korg had the piano player in mind with this instrument, I believe they included some high quality sounds not available on the 500/800/2x. One thing I would check, would be the sound when main outputs are used. On the Korg forum some users complained about the low output level on the PA-500.

See the link: http://korgpa.com/pa_root/en/products/pa588_info.html?en

[This message has been edited by hitman (edited 05-19-2009).]