Analogue-sequencer

>>I don't think there's much correlation between
music-vs-sonic-textures on the one hand, and more-vs-less-gear on the
other. I know people who are seriously into the sonic textures world
who work with very little gear, and people who have tons of gear who
make very conventional music....there's some really lovely stuff out
there which arguably contains as much craft and skill as conventional
music.<<

dammit. I agree with nick aswell. :-) 
I was just saying... I think there's been a /tendency/ amongst /some
of us/ to strip back a bit & start using what we've got a bit more
musically. but digging deeper, this means I spend more time
programming one or two boxes instead of looking around the room for a
short cut.
(I haven't managed to part with the rest of my gear- it's just not all
in one place anymore!) 
in addition to GAS wearing off a bit as one runs out of real-estate,
one matures as a musician &, well, my own experience of electronica is
that there's been a bit of an arms-race in the past....
I'm not explaining this very well, & it may only apply locally anyway...
as a bass-player, I have gone from playing & sounding like geddy lee
or chris squire, to playing more like john entwhistle, jack bruce,
felix pappalardi... the sound is less brash, more considered, & sits
better in the mix. & the new economy of notes means my hands don't get
tired & the bass parts don't sound so smug. if you play the bass,
you'll find that as you get older, you move your right hand further
towards the neck & away from the bridge. I've seen it happen to lots
of bassists. it's quite literally mellower.
I've begun to feel the same about the electronics, that's all I meant.
& I don't think I'm the only one.
but I also used to spend hours making tape loops with one synth, or
rigging frippertronics delays with two tape decks before we knew
someone guitarist was getting free pizzas for doing the same thing in
greenwich village.... I guess it's an arc. different heights for
different people, but an arc all the same.

of course, all of this has been speeded along by the emergence in
recent years of better, custom-built, user-defined instruments like
the p3 & one or two others. my music would certainly be different if I
was still using the maq/mmt8 combination of ten years ago.

d.