If you're looking at spending 1300 dollars or so... and you play a lot of hard rock... PRS' are still out of your price range... unless you save about 700 more or so... A nice Gibson is still out of your price range as well... you can get a decent Gibson for 1000... but its going to be bone stock with nothing special. The ZW Epiphones are decent guitars... and despite the popular belief of Epiphones sucking... they actually don't sound too bad. If I were you though... I would seriously check out the ESP/LTD Truckster... its the James Hetfield signature guitar... they look pretty sweet. They're a Les Paul singe cut away design and they have a cool relic look to them...and you get the EMG pickups... The REAL EMG pickups. The Epi ZW comes with the HZ series picups which are the cheap passive version of the active 81 and 85s that are used in the Gibson version... You can also check out the ESP Eclipse series guitars... they're LP style guitars and they're pretty nice. As for Strats... now thats my cup of tea... You can get pretty far through the Fender inventory with 1300-1500 USD. The only guitars they make that are really out of reach for you would be their Custom Shop guitars... and some of their Relic guitars. Everything else is open season for you. Since you like hard rock though... it's kind of tough to recommend a Strat though... They're very versatile guitars though. I personally like the John Mayer signature... the Eric Johnson signature... and the American Deluxe series. I would have to reccommend the American Deluxe series if I were to reccommend a strat... They come with pretty hot pickups which will give you a good distortion and sound great clean as well... also they have a nice feel. The options on the strats are way better too. You can choose your fretboard (maple or rosewood) and choose from a huuuuuuuge selection of color and pickguard combinations. You said you didn't like the sound of the Schecters... which is ironic... I would have thought you'd like the JB/57 pickup combo... its one of the best combos out there for a hard rock sound... I suggest trying all these guitars before making up your mind. 1300 dollars is an investment... not a purchase... make sure you get what you want and get your moneys worth. Don't forget to try out the guitars on an amp that is similar or identical to yours... so that you can get a real feel for the sound of the guitar. And play it in all settings... clean, overdrive, distortion... all pickups with all knob configurations. Good luck!!!