"Hairless Heart" one small but great instrumental.

Genesis was very melodic and less "technical" on their musical compositions but not when regarding to their performance. The band rehearsed for every tour up until every minutia was set in stone and very rearly would deviate from the rehearsed material. From every single note played (mistakes non withstanding), to the singer's intros and banter with the audiences (in the case of Phil). As a matter of fact, that was one of Bill Bruford's biggest issues with the band; No room for improvisation. Bill's playing is all about improvising without a moment's notice. Genesis were fantastic live and, in great part because their rehearsals covered everything very well. Bruford, in turn, had a problem with everything being rehearsed to the point of not living any room for improvisations. It seems a bit ironic because Phil Collins was at the same time in Brand-X with John Goodsall, Percy Jones and Robin Lumley. Brand X seemed to be "loose" in the sense of lots of room for improvisation and musical feedback between its members during performances. I think in reality, the framework was much tighter than (just a listen to some of their songs live and you get how close they could stay to the recorded material). However, I know for a fact that Goodsall can be very good whilst being very" loose" and unrehearsed (I have worked with him on one of my projects). I think when you have the talent level that these guys have, you could afford to be loose and yet still lay down some very good tracks on tape (or hard-drive, etc). By the way, I'm not claiming to have their level of talent but at the same time I feel very fortunate to have worked with Goddsall, Billy Sherwood and having Bill Bruford on the drum tracks.

I agree with your assessment of ELP and perhaps even Dream Theater. However, I'm just not much into Dream Theater these days (don't hate). I find them too heavy into the guitar as is the case with newer versions of pro-rock. I think Joe Satriani has a lot of talent but I can't take much of that in a row. a lot of the new prog-rock bands have a lot of "Satriani-like" guitar riffs and solos. I like keyboards textures and some keyboard solos mixed in with the guitars. Great examples of the balance between guitars and keyboards are bands such as Yes, Genesis (Hackett's beautiful guitar soundscapes sometimes sound almost like keyboards), Camel, Marillion (more so during the Fish era), gentle Giant, etc. ELP was often too heavy on keyboards and Jethro Tull often heavy on guitars but both of those bands made it work brilliantly.

As far as technical goes, I think King Crimson has to be...well, king. The syncopathic guitars and ever changing drums signatures were just amazing and very complex. Each player was so unique and so far away from mainstream that it was almost hard to believe. Tony Levin, Bill Bruford, Adrian Bellew and Robert Fripp gave us some of the most innovating music ever put on record. Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair was a trio of albums that were as Avant-Garde as Peter Gabriel's third and forth albums (which also had Tony Levin on them). Truly brilliant stuff that re-shaped the way modern music was composed, recorded and produced.

At any rate, it is always good to be able to converse in a forum such as this.