Good point Diki, but look at it like this... Think about how much work it takes to program the arps on a synth. How much work it takes to get those awesome acoustic guitar arps? The new Motif XS for example is using arranger capabilites with the arps. That's not easy work. You ever program a user arp, I mean try and program a real indepth arp? That's freaking ROCKET SCIENCE man!
There's a shit load of work that goes into the features of a synth too. I was mad at the guy, but when he left I thought about it and it started to make sense to me. All the makers "exploit" the home player market. They hit ya hard in your pocket just for those styles.
It would be different Diki if say brass players did the brass section, drummers did the drum sections, real guitar players did the guitar section, and so on, but that's often NOT the case. You know what I mean? Not as much work goes into the styles as the makers would have you think IMO. It's not to say these styles are not freaking awesome in some cases, but I think the guy was right to a degree. I can't tell you the nubmer of times I've talked to owners of a Motif, Triton or Fantom who played a T2, PA series, or Roland pro arranger, who said they can't seem to understand the major price difference either, and who agree that they see no difference in the importance in an arrangers tools to the player as they tools on a synth are to them.
I asked one guy on the Motif forum once what would he do if the price of a Motif 61 key model cost $3500.., man that guy used such colorful language and words I didn't even know existed when he replied to me