That's a really cool. It doesn't look overly-complicated, just perfect actually. I might keep my eyes peeled for one of these things, I love scrounging around for old MIDI gear. Used to be a lot cheaper than it is these days, ironically. Build quality on most everything was top notch too.
I'm sure a lot of professional musicians would probably prefer to use something less fragile than a laptop, something you can rack up, with no pesky desktop OS niggles to worry about during a show. As you know many instruments today are simply dedicated VST runners with a handy physical interface, see Roland's Boutique and Aira synths. I have an MPC One which I love, it can run proprietary VSTs. Maybe such convergences have killed the need for a dedicated box.
They are super cool! Look on Reverb. As I said, you sometimes end up with some fully licensed, expensive plugins as well. A lot of us can probably survive being a couple of versions behind.
I know for a fact new devices like this are on the horizon, but it just might not be the form factor that you are looking for.
loading story #50490013