First of all here is a video previewing some of what we know it's capable of.  The examples start at around 7:05 into the video (up to around 9:10) so you can skip to that and check it out or watch the whole thing (12.5 min) to get a good feel.

Editor Tools:

• 5 Tracks (Bass, Drums, Rhythm, Lead, & Keyboard)
  
• 20 Drum Kits, each with a "complimentary" percussion kit
  
  • with loopsets for n00bs (like me)
  • Cowbell available (yes!)
    
• 70 Keyboard samples
• Rhythm & Lead: Combine the following to create your sound:
  
  • "several" Amps
  • 30+ Effects
  • "several" Cabinet Models
• Lots of Bass samples (Subjective input: only a select few are worthwhile)
  
• Guitar Tilt controls Octave on the fly
  
• Scale and Root Note Customization (Obviously you change the key with this as well)
  • Note that you can change this mid-recording and existing notes preserve their settings
  • This allows you to control what the final notechart looks like
    
• Step Recording (as opposed to Live)
• "Snap" setting, to snap notes to the beat (for those who can't keep time)
  
• Quantization
  
• Arpeggiation
  
• per beat control of BPM
• note for note editing of each track independently
  

Limitations

• 1200 Note per track limit or 3 minutes (unsure on which is the actual limitation)
  
• No functionality to record live vocals (supposedly due to technical/legal issues)
  • Caviat: You can write a vocal part with keyboard and have it played by the vocal "instrument" when played back
    
• Each guitar track is limited to one amp/effect/cab setup per song
  
• You create the the expert version, all other difficulties are automatically generated from that
  
• No songs with existing copyright (they won't know/care if you don't upload it though)
• The editor(not the studio) can be tedious for those with high standards
  

This is what has been revealed (to the best of my knowledge), so you can interpret it for yourself.  Also I don't have a strong knowledge of music theory so if I explained any of this incorrectly...let me know (politely).

Ok so with some background info to go off of the question is simple, first what do you think of these examples? And second what do you think World Tour is capable of? 

Is it like any other instrument, where skilled hands are required to make good music?

Is it simply to simplistic, and thus all of it's music will be confined within it's simplistic capabilities?

Or is it a mixture of both depending on the genre?

Some new videos:

Man, that is such a powerful editor, it's incredible. It's so deep, yet comes across as very easy to use.

Too bad I don't have $180 to drop right now...

ahhh, no custom Dragon Force songs. 1200 limit? or 3 minutes. DF goes well past that in both cases.

Yes, every rhythm/music game is greatly enhanced by an editor. And this one looks pretty workable.

Yup, this is easily the biggest limitation.

This is precisely why having both HMX and Activision fighting for the same market is a good thing BTW =)  It means when HMX does a music editor (and they likely will) they will look at the list of limitations and get rid of as many as possible.  Which of course ups the ante for activision, and we rinse & repeat until its near perfect and they start to focus on other features to distinguish themselves.

Net Effect: The envelope gets pushed to our benefit and we all win!~

GH:WT to replace Apple Towers in schools????


any takers?