lets not forget that you're also buying into the image and look of the actual guitar (granted that fender styles don't evolve much and Gibson is stuck in the past a bit) but nevertheless the recent upsurge in popularity of brands like Ibanez and the BC Rich guitars is based a lot on the way those guitars look. I'm kinda pissed at guitar manufacturers for not making guitar image evolve a little bit, i mean i don't want a guitar that looks like it's from a science fiction movie, but surely Line 6 with it's variax guitars could have modernised them more to represent the technological advancements in cased within the guitar. Personally I like my ESP F series, it's kinda stratty, kinda demonic, and it's real nice to play (which of course is the most important thing).