WHY an AKAI S900/S950 nowadays?

Not difficult to reply: its AD-DA converters. They have an unique character and even if they work at 12-bits the punch delivered is massive, and holes your mix easily. Its sound is really cool, I can browse 100 samples loading them into Kontakt or any other Vsampler and it's very difficult to find something not boring, not dull, not already heard. Put the same samples into the AKAI S900 and they start kicking and stimulating again. Maybe it's me? I bet most people hasn't been lucky enough to find out theirself...

More reasons:

Well a sampler is useful to load "side" sounds that don't need that much versatility, like some snare, hi-hats, or whatever, so one gets a few channel freed from the audio card. Not bad.

Can be used as an FX as described here: if you are lazy and you really need modern plugins' features you can run the final signal into it and get AKAI sound for any audio source. Nice. Very nice as a distortion unit also.

It can sound stupid, but sometimes take your head out of the monitor and program sounds on a LCD display can help you to distract a little and find new ways to do things. Different ideas emerge from different approaches. Tools are not only devices to develop already shaped ideas, they are also ways to shape new ideas...

This sounds like a 1986 commercial...;)