Tenori-on vs Monome

Hi -

Just recently I got interested in the Monome 256 as a nice customizable interface to my own Max systems. However there are two serious problems with the device: Firstly it would cost me over 800 GBP with shipping & duty, and secondly they appear to be way too cool to do anything as vulgar as actually sell me one.

Now I have become aware that there is a similar interface on the market, the Yamaha Tenori-on. The Tenori-on is 600 GBP, has extra buttons and a wheel, seems a bit more ergonomic and is actually available for sale to human beings. It also contains a load of crappy AWM sounds and some rather tiresome novelty sequencing software but I don't really care about that.

Now, from looking at the manual (available at http://www.tenori-on.co.uk/downloads/) it seems clear that detecting button presses from the machine is done fairly easily by using its midi out and sifting a bit of sysex data. But it's not at all clear whether it's possible to control the lights on the machine via its midi in (something which is trivially easy with the Monome). Without this ability the thing is a lot less useful. I've emailed Yamaha about this by the way but so far no response...

So I guess my question is: Does anybody here have a Tenori-on, and if so have they figured out a way to control its lights from Max? Or does anyone know of any other similar interfaces? Alternatively, does anybody have a Monome 256 to sell me?

[sb]