The piano roll

Sorry, let me rephrase, because Copland was a bad example.

I've seen music directors refuse to play "Down a Country Road" and similar pieces because they consider them atonal.

I don't think the piano roll is an invalid form of music notation. What I originally said (and what the post should have been about, but I love getting off topic) is that if the piano roll is used as graphic notation (for electronic music), then you should also find a way to notate (or post the output of) your filter settings and your automation tracks. In cases like this, it would probably be easier to just post your project files, because then we'd also get the graphical playlist.

In non-electronic music (as in, you wrote a piece for string trio) then no, the piano roll isn't sufficient notation, as we need to also see phrasing, articulations, etc, etc. Not including these things is just lazy, and representing them on a piano roll effectively will take more time than outputting to a score and cleaning it up.

As far as "the sound file is my finished product", I don't see ANYTHING wrong with that when writing music that isn't meant to be played by live performers. I have heard some wonderful electronic "classical" pieces, and our university just launched a huge electronic music department to teach these things. However, again, if submitting your music for other similarly-minded people to review and edit (and in general, to help you improve), you should really post your project files to aid us in helping you edit and critique your work.

My "digs" on commercial music were not meant to discredit the work done by commercial writers or film scoring; as I stated earlier, music that is written for a specific venue should be appropriate to that venue. 20 minutes of short hooks and moving masses of sound isn't going to translate well over to the concert stage when performed live, and if you're writing for real instruments for a concert setting, then you should be sensitive to that end goal. A brass section is much different from a brass pad and etc, and the sound and limitations of the players must be taken into account. Why write a "symphony for GPO" when it is much more rewarding to have that piece performed by a live group?