[scottmandue]

Just to qualify what I said,
I like the comparison to a professional mechanic... that is his bread and butter... he spends thousands for top quality tools.

And my comment about sponsored musicians... it is free advertising for the manufacture... muti-million dollar rock star seen up on stage or TV playing brand "X" guitar and a million kids are going to run out and but a brand "X" guitar, but they don't get the exact guitar because the rock star has his speced out with custom pickups, frets, etc. to fit his/her taste.

Having said that we used to follow a local blues player (Randy Rich) he played in small bars and noticed we kept coming back so he would talk to us on breaks. My friend and I used to peruse pawn shops back in the 70's & 80's and picked up a lot of weird guitars. We would bring them to Randy and he would play a set with them and make the old piece of krap sing.

So bottom line it is more in the player than in the guitar.

IMHO you can get a fine playing guitar for a couple hundred bucks (Mex Strat) then there is some stuff that is art work (see nostatics bass/guitars) that is worth thousands, and some is collectible/historical that just gets crazy prices (much like "classic" cars).

Ok I'm rambling and will stop the rant.
Carry on.