Since my focus is on "styles" these days, and being a "style aficionado" I thought I'd drop this comment I've been thinking about for years.

What will kill off arrangers for people like me is the lack of "pure" dance styles and the lack of diversity. Great instrument sounds will always be there but the styles are becoming more bland and more unremarkable and more complex.....and more in control of the player rather than the player in control of the style.

I've heard it said a few times here that most of us only use a dozen basic styles. That goes for me too. When I see a keyboard that advertises 20,000 styles, I already know what to expect. 5,000 C&W 4/4's, 5,000 8 beat ballads, 3,000 bossanovas, etc. They all sound the same to an audience so do you (or your audience) really care?

I find it difficult working around these contemporary jazzed up styles. There is so much going on in the style itself, that I have to "play around it." Not so with the older simplistic styles. With them you had freedom to be yourself and not be a slave to the automation!