There is one element of this that may have been over looked and that is cost. You only have to look at the price of a Roland system, say between 2 and a half to 5 thousand pounds for a three tom three cymbal set. MD remember costs less than a single Roland Tom!!
The Roland is plug and play and pretty, however the overall effect i.e a drum sound from a pair of headphones or speakers is not better than my 4 tom 6 cymbal cow bell set, which although is a bit heath robinson in looks and homemade but it sounds like an accoutic set to me. If I have spent £500.00 I would be suprised, ok the learning curve is steep, however that was part of the fun.
Dmitri may want the MD to be a commercial sucesss and see them flying out the door but that is a whole different ball game. Perhaps people forget that he does this in his spare time with a few regulars testing and advising. If I had one request though it would be to make MDM a little more user friendly for those of us who do not fully understand the whole process.