I had a Dragon 32k. That was more than enough RAM… in 1982 
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It doesn’t exist in any substantial way.
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Oh, there’s not much of one concurrent 
Hence why it seemed like you’re working the other way around by assuming there is a trend to follow!
“EDM” music trends are a lagging indicator.
It’s a trend, driven by synth nerds getting bored of analogue… some of whom are actual musicians, so it will start turning up in commercially successful productions (outside of EDM) soon enough. Musos are a little ahead of the public in these things.
Anyway, I’m skipping wavetables. I genuinely believe that romplers will be the next big thing. Give it about a year. And then we’ll see who’s laughing at the likes of Roland…
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I’ve filled my Blofeld with field recordings and run it through a Moog MF101. Technically that makes it paraphonic but it sounds so good.
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I am completely sincere. Romplers are musically useful, very versatile given the right architecture, and could benefit enormously from tech development since their glory days oh, 15 years ago. Players want more control now and a touch of wildness - so allow sample import and chuck a gnarly filter in there, increase storage beyond the few mb of years past, and you have the hit of NAMM 2021. Prices of jvXXXX synths are rising…
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You sound as if romplers ever went away. What exactly do you consider to be and not be a rompler? What about Motiv, Kronos, and Fantom, and their lower-end derivatives, for example?
The big workstations can do all that for sure, and more. But they are BIG and UGLY and VERY EXPENSIVE. With undesirable features like touchscreens. A more hands-on, stylishly limited rompler is called for.
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Yeah it’s more the spirit of the Rompler combined with left-field manufacturer thinking. The opposite of workstations!
Having said that about workstations, I’d love to know if - having somehow overcome the main downside -price 
- I could make the size, ugliness and horrendous touch screens a kind of bonus/victory in the spirit of wilful misuse. Something the more progressive manufacturers can deprive you of with all their ‘personality’
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I really wish romplers were the next big thing. I recently bought myself a Roland XV-5080 with 8 expansions, maxed out memory and R-Bus-cable plus the Roland DIF-AT -box for a good price.
Even more than that I wish manufacturers realized the benefits of the rack format again. My tabletop is full of tabletop synths, there’s no more space for a new one. But I still have 10 rackspaces worth of space under the table.
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I think the use-cases for romplers were replaced by sample libraries for software samplers like Kontakt in conjuction with generic midi keyboards and software synths that come shipped with hundreds or thousands of handcrafted presets. Why use a dedicated hardwarebox that doesnt even need a lot of buttons because of the limited sound design possibilites when you can have one big machine that that can host everything from VA synths to orchestral sample packs?
In my opinion romplers are a thing of the past and will be because of practicability and technical advancements.
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Always popular
that’s when you get to push what’s possible - perhaps by sending them extremely fast and modulating PGs and CCs. Or the shortest gate time it’ll take x1000 while playing with the tempo.
Or PB0 alternating with PB127 as fast as you can send it. Again with tempo changes. Every piece of gear will react differently.
I went into all this when limited to:
And an mc300
Much later and I find these kind of moves are built in - like the Octatrack (RTRG and AMF-AMD)
As for new approaches. Increased memory availability alone allows for a big rethink.
But it’s how the studio time is used when creating sample based patches that I think has most potential 
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Back in the early 80s, when Edgar Froese was working with the PPG guys, the wavetable system resulted in a quantum leap in sound design imo. I loved and love those early 80s TD albums - especially Poland, which had PPG right at the heart and still sound fresh today.
It almost seemed a shame that wavetable engines seemed to be over-shadowed by FM.
Edit: pulls up Edgar’s Stuntman album on the phone.
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Theoretically yes, romplers are easily replaced by VSTs.
The same is true of analog synths… the sound quality and flexibility of the best VSTs is indistinguishable to 99% of listeners.
But there is the same premium for interface, stability, and longevity. I have, theoretically, a good computer for running VSTs. It’s still not as responsive or reliable as a $200 rompler-box from 1990. And that rompler-box from 1990 will probably run just fine in 10 years, when my computer will be obsolete.
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Ah yes, a two-line LCD, tiny spongy multifunctional buttons, and a single encoder knob, all at an awkward angle for the human operator, are indeed the pinnacle of man-machine interface design…
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Yes, I agree there are some people that love their trusty 90ies romplers and I say let them have it but the market for out-of-the-box ready-to-use quality sounds shifted to sample libraries for software samplers and I wouldnt bet my money on a resurgence of romplers.
well, you may laugh, but when I purchased a Roland SC-55 Soundcanvas rompler to use with my Digitakt/OT… I found it much more efficient than doing the same thing in software. Those romplers expect multitimbrality, things like assigning MIDI channels are very close to the surface. Of course you’d expect a much better UX on a modern equivalent of the JV1080, but things like better screens are very cheap so it wouldn’t be difficult to accomplish.
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What about the low-end romplers like Korg Kross? Those don’t seem too big or expensive. “Ugly” is subjective so I’ll leave looks out.
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Rossum (formerly of E-Mu) has some interesting sample playing stuff - granted, Assimil8or is a full-on sampler, not a rompler. Panharmonium is also not a rompler but a resynthesizer