You forget my age - drum machine sounds are GOOD! (80s not 90s ones...).
But more seriously, the real issue is number 1. in my original post. I understand where TT are coming from in trying to get a "realistic" drum sound with variation as played by a real drummer, but the sample engine - at least in my hands and with Semi Seq switched on - produces snare hits which are OK, OK FAR TOO LOUD and then far too soft. The lesser evil is to have identical snare hits for the back-beats - which at least have a groove to them and you can hear clearly in the mix without having to mash them with limiting/compression/distortion to even out the levels... ...and then every time the drummer does something interesting go back to random / alternate humanisation. It works for me. The only issue as mentioned is the cutting and pasting of all the audio bounces to assemble the compilation tracks. Anyway, thanks for the helpful steers. Rgds, Mark