I absolutely love Satch and Vai. My favorite guitarist always oscillates between those two. However, an extremely talented, and sadly, dearly departed virtuoso has neglected to have been mentioned on this thread. Y'all ever hear of Shawn Lane? Get his "Powers of 10" album and you will be blown away. I don't really know what I can say about his music, but it's sad he wasn't mega-famous like Vai and Satch (even though they're not really famous outside our little guitar circle here).