Thank you all... this is very helpful.

@MusicStudent - this is what I suspected: styles were much more important in case of MIDI based material. It seems like the pattern stuff in StyleMaker for instance does not have any relevance when working only with RealTracks. Is that right?

For long-time users, this is probably a much more natural thing as it happened gradually over time but for a first-time user it's a bit odd in the beginning.

@justanoldmuso - the advice to try and mix styles is very good I am realizing. When the feel is off (swing vs. even), things are (obviously) much more likely to go awry, but other than that lots of happy accidents seem to be waiting :-)