Brass libraries for live use

[musikmik]

Hey, everyone! I am new to the forum and am trying to figure out how to update my sample gear. I am a musical director for musical theater, so half of my work is using samples for sequencing in the studio, and half of the time I use them live in the orchestra pit. I am about to go on the road with a national tour of a musical, and am needing to supplement my orchestra with samples, primarily orchestral brass (with some bite!). Up until now I have simply loaded samples into my two Kurzweil 2600s, and while the sounds have been a compromise, with daily travel they have proved reliable. So here are my questions:

1. I just ordered Quantum Leap Brass and already own all of the Roland Sample Libraries. If my memory is limited to 256MB with my keyboards, are there any other brass libraries which could possibly give me a quality trumpet, trombone, french horn, and brass ensemble in that amount of memory?

2. If I were to look at the larger sample libraries, what are your opinions on ProjectSAM Brass? SI Orchestral Brass? EWQLSO? (I've left out VSL since the VI's only play monophonically.) Would any of these be more suited to playing and manipualting live than another? (Does ProjectSAM actually sound like their demos?)

3. This may be a bit more of a hardware question (and is also being posted in the hardware section), but how would I go about using these libraries live? Are any programs like Gigastudio or Kontakt reliable enough to use live? Can you layer and map sounds on any of those programs? Would Receptor be a good idea? Is there any advance word on KORE (which actually sounds like the thing I need!) Or am I crazy to try to use these computer based systems live?

I know this is a bit open-ended, but as I am new to computer-based sample libraries I'm open to any info or suggestions I can get. Thanks!

Michael B