Yes Peter, and I am a long time fan of Roland products..

I would be curious to hear George Kaye and Dan Oneil comments..

Personally I can't think of one advantage for awkward chord fingering of this method[any key to the left of root etc,]..Maybe Roland is just adding this to entry level boards to have a comparable feature to other entry level boards..

It surely is not advanced and I can't see it necessary on Top of the Line arrangers..