well, my advice to you is this:
instead of buying anything by epiphone, check out Eastwood Guitars.
http://www.eastwoodguitars.com/
while not "made in the USA"...which is usually a deal breaker for me, i bought one. OUTSTANDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and cheap
and, will hold its value
I changed out the pickup selector and tuners and am very happy with the guitar i bought, which is the Airline 3 pickup deluxe. my god what a sound!
unfortunately, you cant just go down to guitar center and try them...but you can trust the Harmony Central reviews about them.
I dont buy guitars for "investment". I beat them to hell. I have a Santa Cruz acoustic that i paid $4,000 that has holes in it.
The investment aspect is important because when you get sick of it, you will get a good buck for it and can buy something else!!!!!!!!!!!!