Firstly, other than bass, do monophonic synths have real uses? It seems like such a prohibitive limitation to not be able to play chords. I know there are sort of ways around this, but only one voice at a time seems like it would only work in bass lines. Is this the case? Are any lead sounds in modern electronic music made with a monophonic synth?
Furthermore, if I wanted to buy a "simple" hardware based polyphonic synth, with oscillator waveforms like the classic SW synths (Sylenth, Hive, Diva, Primer) and a functional keyboard (but not spend $4,000) - used or new, do I have options?
In terms of analog hardware, I really can only find one classic "East Coast" polyphonic subtractive synth with a keyboard currently being manufactured (the Prophet line).
The Korg Mini has too small of a keyboard and only one voice, the Moog Voyager only has one voice, The Virus seems harder to use...and I am out of ideas after that.