Alan has done a very nice job and spent lots of time recording each part/groove/sound to get his result use Motif and Giga. The big questions.

1. Does it sound that much better than what can be done with a top-end arranger?

2. Is all of that time worth it versus sitting down at an arranger and playing?

IMHO, I'd rather focus on the playing music, not programming it. The top-end arrangers sound pretty good. Although I long for the day when a midi controller of my choice and a pc-based arranger hosting 3rd-party products like the ethnic libraries of sounds and grooves featured in the recent issue of Electronic Musician can give me the same sound quality as Alan's efforts with the ease of today’s hardware proprietary arrangers. BIAB, OMB, Jammer, etc fans please don't chime in hear. None of the current arranger products are there yet.