For those interested in playing with alternative synths, this discusion on the PGMusic forum about a free version of Sampletank might be of interest.
I've downloded this product but haven't yet had time to play with it.
http://www.pgmusic.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=290413&an=0&page=0#Post290413
I've downloaded the actual Sampletank thing, now I'm just downloading the library, which in my case only takes 7 minutes.