While I understand where your coming from Rub, I was calling Guitar Hero GF for the loooongest time, I think the main reason it's lacking those extra features is because the target audience for the game. Rythym games never had a really big market until these games were released. Hardcore gamers stateside were playing games that had multiplayer or consumed 50 hours of your life. This was the kind of game designed to be picked up a parties and have fun with. In short for a casual gamer.

As for the calibration in the arcades that's the arcade owners fault for not calibrating his machine. Don't hate the game because the owner is to lazy to fix the timing on it. =P

And as for the drum thing just turn on no-fail mode and call it a day. Then you can play whatever you please and still score 100% of notes hit.

This isn't a knock against you just some thoughts that game to mind. While I'm not a konami fan-girl take comfort in knowing someone else knew the truth.

Back on topic. I like Rock Band because they play it at the bar by my house. Therefore I play it more.

This is what we refer to as "Animal Mode"

Sure, Konami started the idea. But then Harmonix took it and ran with it. They used more popular songs making the game more appealing, they changed the controllers to make them more manageable (in my oppinion), and they keep making changes to try and make sure it doesn't get stale. If you are predicting that Konami is going to "suck the life out of EA and Activision," then they have a long way to go. Rock Revolution is currently sitting at a score of 40%-46.25% (depending on which system you look at, and the DS doesn't count for this comparison Rock Revolution for PlayStation 3 - GameRankings) while Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour are sitting at 79%-91.83% and 81.2%-86.5% respectively (Rock Band 2 for PlayStation 3 - GameRankings and Guitar Hero World Tour for PlayStation 3 - GameRankings). I've read about numerous gameplay issues with Rock Revolution, as well as complaints about the set list and the drum kit.

On the bright side, since Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band are competing with eachother, they are constantly coming up with new features. If Konami can start implementing them into their games, they might be able to make a name for themselves. If they really want to overthrow GH:WT and RB, then they really need to start tweaking their game cause at it stands, not many people are interested.