You are overlooking a few things. Of the new features that require new parts added to the interface, the Virtual Drummer versions have:
- Individual selections for each instrument
- You can then select a different type per instrument
- Each instrument has an individual Decay, Tune, and Reverb and the Ambience channels have compressor, LP and HP
- Each instrument has an individual solo/mute
The A-List version has none of that and only has level adjustment per instrument.
- Then there's the Master section
And I think the keys display is necessary and very helpful. I'm glad they were added to the A-List Guitarists. Was hoping they'd be added to the A-List Drummers, but this is of course even better
I really like the way these are organized. They are easy on the eyes and nothing feels crammed. And they aren't even the largest that REs can be. They are some of the best looking REs I have seen. Some people say they don't think they look enough like hardware, while I can easily interpret the touch displays. Meanwhile, I've never seen a snare drum in a rack with controls on it, so...