the team must find a compromise between what keeps current users happy and what attracts new users: every feature which can do this is a benefit for Renoise, because it will let it survive.
the simplest way, and also the most used, to find this compromise, is to make feature optionally hidden, like it is for the pattern matrix.
as vV already pointed out, Skale died for many reasons, but one of that is surely that its user base was not wide enough
The fact that lots of promised features never got implemented or were added in a half-assed solution or simply not working is an important part of this.
And just that people can accept this, i recon you Spike, have bared quite some annoyances and irritations with Skale throughout it’s evolution process, so i suspect when looking at it from that perspective, things look very promising for you even though you might feel intimidated which i as Impulse Tracker endorser had as well.
You don’t need to see the whole staircase to see where it ends, you know you will end up higher if you keep climbing each step.
indeed I have always been fascinated by how Skale users could cope with its enormous defects, while being extremely picky about what they found bad in Renoise; then, once I read on Skale forum something like “I hate Renoise: it’s a great app if you want to make… like… music lol”, and decided to give up trying to understand Skale users 
Writing a programm that fits my needs. I don’t want to use cubase, i hate pianorolls and I cannot play piano.
a bit ot but i was checking wikipedia for skale tracker (no such article) and came across that old quote.(=
http://web.archive.org/web/20020803155023/http://noerror.scene.org/people.php?id_p=3
it’s never late to change an opinion and i think now with Renoise it will be easier to prove that trackers are good as any other program, it depends only of who is using it
i don’t care about live or any other software, Renoise and Pro Tools are everything i need, and even Pro Tools i won’t use it so much as i did because of Renoise
well not all Skale users had the same feelings about Renoise
i didn’t knew it before, it took me 1 day to change from Skale to Renoise as soon as i knew it
lol @ the ratings of the first post… the forum has decided: please do make extreme changes!
they don’t laugh literally but it’s always a fun thing for people that never saw Renoise to think about Skale or FT2 as real software to make music this days, i guess Renoise will make trackers look different as it is really professional and to us here a better deal than any other
and let’s clarify this, i’m not against piano roll and a lot of other ideas and obviously i’m not against evolution, i just think that when you start proposing horizontal playing, end of patterns and some other extreme measures… well you tell me, where’s the tracker there? there are other software that do that, why anyone would want to make a tracker look like Reason or Logic or Pro Tools?
that’s why i said: a tracker is a tracker
don’t understand why i offend anyone 
maybe because we all know the influence that a new guy in this forum has in their decisions… i’m an opinion maker! beware!
All other things aside… Welcome sir, to the Legion of Hex.
Who on earth proposed that we get rid of the vertical paradigm, or remove patterns entirely? And where did you get the idea that the devs were actually considering this?
Well I personally feel we should be able to play multiple patterns at the same time… the “clip” paradigm pleases me greatly (it would please me more if it was multi-track)… but I don’t think we should do away with patterns. I think we should just change how patterns operate.
so in the end you say i was right
if someone asked you about the Top 5 special features that define all software trackers, patterns would be one of them
take that out is not evolution, it’s a major change, and finally (for me and other long time trackers) a disaster
I just don’t see a problem with discussing these issues… a single post doesn’t indicate that the team’s seriously considering such a change.
That all said, I’m seriously considering drafting up a full fledged design doc containing some changes I’ve been thinking about.
and i don’t see a problem giving my opinion against it also 
why do we have to say everyone’s ideas are great? some are, some don’t
it’s better for us all if we say the truth about what we feel as long as we don’t offend anyone, and i sure didn’t do that
How is it a disaster if a feature that you opt not to enable is introduced to a piece of software?
It’s like getting angry because your phone gets a software upgrade that adds VPN support when you don’t use VPN; don’t want to use VPN; don’t even know or care what VPN is, goddamnit. Why the hell did they add VPN? It’s not a bloody phone any more! This is a disaster! They had it just right, back when you could only connect to standard wireless LANs or 3G networks, but then they went and RUINED it by adding VPN! You might never even see the VPN option hidden away in the menu system, but deep down in your heart, you know it’s there and it makes you so ANGRY!
Gah! Now I’M angry too! I’m going to go outside and yell at my car because I heard that the next update to the Yaris model will have cup-holders - cars never used to need cup-holders, not in the good old days when people made proper cars that adhered to the traditional principles of automobilosity. Now the paradigm has changed because the Yaris user community demanded cup-holders and the designers expect me to drive my car with a can of Pepsi stored conveniently within reach! How can I drive properly now? Even though the cup-holder will be folded away and out of sight, and even though THEY HAVEN’T EVEN ADDED THEM YET, and even though I’ll still have my old, satisfactory, cup-holderless, 2000-model Yaris with which I’m perfectly happy [etc. etc. etc.]
Anyway, isn’t it nice that you can download older versions of Renoise from the Backstage area? So you need never worry about what the future holds 
And I don’t mean you ill; I just have this compulsion to belabour tenuous analogies.
i would like to thank the cry baby that is wasting his time giving me bad reputation
i’m in a competition with Lili357 and he has -277, i’ll need some help to beat him!
one more vote here please!
hahaha
i don’t want older versions, i want to be in charge, what i say is what devs should do
after you guys named me master in opinion making i smelled the power and now i’m totally corrupted by it, i’m an audio dictator!
Fair enough! 
by the way, love your covers “Save a prayer” by Duran Duran is really cool
do you know a band named The Moog Cookbook?
YEAH!!! HAHAHA thanks for bringing that up. I used to get high on that stuff. (Or was that Jean Jacques Perry? It’s all good…)
i once heard that they went for a public presentation at MTV or other musical network but they had never tried to play with their customs before, so when they started playing the gloves were to thick they couldn’t play the keyboards!
if that’s true that’s gotta be one of the best fail musical moments in history
anyway, their covers are amazing and really funny, i always laughed with Hotel California when i was a dj playing that song