arpeggiators

[Claire F.]

I was just reading a little bit on the new Waldorf Q synth (yummy?) and
noticed yet another compnay brining up, but noe defining, their "advanced
arpeggiator." I got to thinking on what exactly an advanced
arpeggiator might be (I vote for extraneous lights that spell out the
name of your favorite old analog in tempo to the arp), which begs the (on
topic) question, "what is a basic arpeggiator?"
To my understanding, an arpeggiator is pretty much just a loop/phrase
sequence "keyed" to a specific note (the one that triggers the sequence)
and played untill pressure or the "lock" is released. Am I close?
What I was wondering is this: What do you guys think would be must have
features on an "advanced" arpeggiator? Why?
Just curious with a long day of work left ahead of me.






"The SCI Prophet 600... tear it out of that housing, rack 'er up and
  semi-modularize it, and you got yourself one heck of a machine..."