> It's not even about the old computers being slow or the bit width.
This is on the money; the previous comment was not accurate. In fact, we may have had this discussion (or one close to it) 3-4 years ago.
>having said that, I think there are ideas out there for successors to MIDI, but I haven't been following any of their progress.
From what I have seen there have been changes all along since 1985 still using MIDI. Twenty years ago or so some people were saying MIDI was dead because audio processing became accessible. However, from what I have seen MIDI has continued to grow/change/etc. and is still useful for those people who know how to use it for what they want. Yes, there are still deficiencies, but there will always be issues with any technology.
A few years ago, a VZ user even wrote a web-based/browser VZ editor. That could not be done in 1985. And last I checked, it worked on modern computers!!!!!! (Although with changes web browsers have been known to change web-based code.
I am glad you acknowledged you haven't kept up. That speaks well of you and your input (in my opinion).