I've played only a four piece since 1990 or so and it will never run out of possibilities for me. A larger kit means things need to be farther away from you, a

I've played only a four piece since 1990 or so and it will never run out of possibilities for me. A larger kit means things need to be farther away from you, and if things are too far away there's no point in having them, so in any studio I take that second tom off the rack and move the ride cymbal right in, and it feels great. In that way I guess a four piece kit reminds me of lisp - just some parenthesis and a few other things, but endless possibilities nonetheless. But I've never used lisp for anything really and in software I always like to shoot for a happy medium of scale and pragmatism. Also Neal Peart's setup is part of the entertainment value. EJB or some overgrown PHP thing, on the other hand, not very entertaining.