A great guitar can sound and play badly if it is not setup correctly...and every guitar will play much much much better when it is set up than when it is not.
I dont really know the Epiphone range that well, but you are no doubt paying for the Les Paul signature and whatnot...If I were you, I;d take Prs's advice and go with the Yamaha Aes 620...not sure of the price of thsoe there, but here they are comparable to the Epi Les Pauls...and in my opinion, twice the guitar.
Not only are they much lighter, but they also have a Seymour Duncan Jb Humbucker in the bridge position (something that you will find in time to be very awesome...stock pickups generally suck).
The Aes620's also have awesome finnishes and really nice Flame maple tops...for the money, I'd say they're the best guitars available
[FONT=Century Gothic]Hope is when we feel the pain that makes us try again[/FONT]