Dennis,
I realize your frustration with Ketron products, but facts are facts:

- the Midjay HAS a USB connection and it works really fast (I am talking of the OLD Midjay here...) and this makes all the more puzzling the fact the the SD5 (that came later) lacks one.
- the riff feature is mentioned specifically on the ketron website
- the SD5 has an entire section of new styles, compared with the SD1 (they are called unplugged and benefit of new guitar and bass sounds, more or less like the Tyros 2 does)
- an 80 Gb hard disk (vs 30 Gb in the old Midjay) to me is not "a bit more storage space": it's almost triple the quantity

I don't think that Ketron is simply trying to "clear more units"; to me the Midjay plus means that they have -hopefully- solved the problems of the old Midjay and is also an answer to the main complaints of the end users.
True, the navigation and the user interface are always the same, but this is true of all the Ketron products, so if you don't like them, there is nothing you can do about it.
Once again, I understand that you are having an issue with the SD1 (you didn't like it since the beginning, if I remember well), but -as I said- facts are facts.