Lightning Strikes...New Keyboard Decision

New gear..... man I hate lightning strikes.... to my house... in my business, when a customer calls and says they had a lightning strike,,,,, well, that means I'm making money.

Keep all your gear on a surge protected UPS..... AND or unplug it from the wall when you finish..... what does it take?.... 5 second to reach down and pull the plug out of the outlet..... once disconnected, the gear is safe from the surge.

ALL my important electronics and studio gear is on a surge protected UPS..... but even then, I will at times pull the plug.

I'd probably skip the Juno G on that list. Not anti-Roland, as I have a couple of Roland synths that I like. Best to try them all and see what they offer for sound, performance features, editing depth & ease of use. None of the "swiss army knife" keyboards these days do everything right, so it'll depend on what your needs are. I personally wouldn't buy any new keyboard/workstation these days unless it had a very good sampling option for adding your own multi-sampled/layered sounds. That's just me though. A large part of those synths is going to be the "same old same old" sound sets with a few new flavours added.

Well, let's see:
 
As far as lightning, what surprised me was that I had the keyboard plugged in to a power strip and the strip was turned off.  How did the voltage spike get through a power strip that was turned off?
 
As far as soft synths, I really do prefer hardware synths for these reasons:
 
1. You have to have a computer to use a soft synth.  On the rare occasion that I play out, there is no way I am taking my tower system to a gig.  I don't want to buy a laptop either.  One computer's worth of problems is enough.
 
2. Keyboards don't crash, get viruses, have compatibility issues, etc. like computers do.
 
3. Keyboards have no lag time...instant response.  Soft synths have lag time, and even though it might be slight, it bothers the drummer in me.
 
4. I like the control of all of those knobs and sliders, not clicking a mouse on multiple windows.
 
I do appreciate the responses though.  It's difficult for me to test keyboards in the store.  Where I live, there are not a lot to choose from...small town.

2. Keyboards don't crash, get viruses, have compatibility issues, etc. like computers do. 3. Keyboards have no lag time...instant response. Soft synths have lag time, and even though it might be slight, it bothers the drummer in me.

 
I can understand not wanting to schlep extra gear to gigs... 
But I wanted to elaborate on a couple of things.
 
FWIW, Keyboards *can/do* have issues playing live at gigs... and can indeed crash.
I've had a Korg M3 go out of tune at a gig... right in mid tune (power related).
When you go to power up a M3, Motif, or Fantom... notice that it takes about a minute to boot up.
Why?  Because they're dedicated computers.  (The Motif XS runs a dedicated version of Linux.)
The M3 going out of tune was what finally pushed me to start using a laptop... then the cube (for more speed).
FWIW, I've not had a single issue (no glitches/hiccups/etc) in many months of 4 hour gigs.  
 
In over 14 years of use... none of my DAWs has ever had a virus.
 
Regarding knobs/sliders/etc:  I use a Motif XS as a MIDI controller (along with an expression pedal).
I've got plenty of realtime MIDI control at my fingertips.
 
I started out as a drummer (all thru school/college)... so I'm very sensitive to timing.
If you have the speed, you can run soft-synths at a 64-sample ASIO buffer size.
This translates to about 2ms latency...
That's actually faster response time than almost any current keyboard-workstation (Motif, Fantom, M3, etc).
There is no additional lag/etc... timing is actually better than the flagship units from Korg, Yamaha, Roland, and Kurzweil.
 
Other than cartage... there's no downside to using soft-synths. 
I play out with the cube/touch-screen combo quite regularly.
I've got cases (w/wheels) for both... so load-in/out is pretty quick.
I can be setup in about 5-10 minutes.
 
In any event, use the gear you like.
But there's no reason to fear/fret about using soft-synths.
In truth, today's keyboards are nothing more than dedicated computers running dedicated soft-synths.
As with a typical studio DAW, if you make good choices, you can have a very reliable live (soft-synth) machine.
I'm going on two years without a single glitch.  That's actually more reliable than the Korg M3.  
 

The only questions now are to get a Cakewalk or M-Audio controller and Omnisphere or Kontakt.

 
BTW, I didn't even mention that reprogramming set-lists is about 1000 times quicker/easier.    
Use either Cantible 2 Performer or Forte' as the live host application.
The soft-synths are configured as a virtual "rack" of gear.  Sub-sessions or Scenes are used to setup unique setup (Multi-patch) for each song.  This would be your splits/layers/etc.  The coolest part is that muted (unused) soft-synths don't load the CPU.
 
Regarding the controller:
If possible, go play both.
You'll likely prefer the feel of one over the other.