Rharv,
Spoken like a true Roland fan that you are!
Seriously though,I don't disagree with your statement regarding the Motif,but to me,it's all about the sound quality & a decent amount of ROM to work with-which the Motif has and that's well worth the extra work to learn.
What it all boils down to for me,is that if I did not have my Korg M3 and I was starting with nothing & I had $3,500 to spend on hardware,I would choose the Motif over the Fantom 6 days a week & twice on Sunday,as there's just no comparison,in terms of sheer ROM amounts.
With regard to workstations,Roland has always given their users a small amount of mediocre factory sounds & extorted money out of people,by making the most usable sounds,only available through their SRX & ARX libraries.
I do not mean to provoke a pissing contest over gear,but to be brutally honest,I've spent quite a bit of time on the Roland forums,in an effort to make a decision regarding what workstation I was going to buy,& no matter how politely I voiced my opinions with reference to the Fantom,people there always became very upset.
However though,I could be utterly malicious towards Korg if I wanted to & completely trash Korg & that would be perfectly fine with them.
A product specialist from Roland,who has his own YouTube page,bitches & moans about how complicated the Reason 4 software is and how the Fantom G has better sound quality anyway,which simply is not true,no matter how opinionated someone is.
Roland users are very similar to die-hard sports fans,as they have unflinching loyalty towards a particular team,regardless of how often that team loses a game.
Like I had always said,I am very fond of Roland's stand-alone synthesizers,like the Super JX-10 and the V-Synth,but their workstations are so overpriced for what they offer in terms of sounds & the price of their ARX cards just compounds the problem 10 fold.
When I shop around for a workstation,I don't do so with any fierce loyalty towards a particular brand and I just end up making a decision strictly based on merit of a particular product and all of it's particular attributes for what I need.
Yes I am a Korg fan & have owned nothing but Korg workstations,but only because Korg has been consistent in their reliablity,work-flow,sounds,features & value.
I have longed for variety for quite a while & have considered many different brands & the only other brand of workstation that seems worthwhile to me,is the Motif series,beginning with the XS.
This is coming from one of the most anti-Yamaha guys you'll ever know(as it were),but I have felt that Yamaha has finally turn a corner for the better & I feel that the XF series is the most exciting prospect to date,currently.
-Thom