Now, i was looking for a guitar fit for metal, i'm assuming you're looking for something that would be fit for jazz or country or something far elss heavy...etc insert genre here...anyhow, some of the best gutiars for less heavy music that i ran across then, were mostly Gibsons, i was considering Epiphones until i realized they were the crappier version of Gibson guitars, kinda like Squire is Fenders cheap line of guitars.
Basically, it comes down to this, you can search around for a vintage Gibson Les Paul or an SG. Those are fairyl good, in my experience most vintage equiptment sound much better than the new stuff. Not exactly sure why, but it does.
Other considerations to make would be a Gretsch guitar of some sort either one of their hollow or solid bodied gutiars, both lines are fairly good, though rather expensive.
Oh yea, and most guitar stores do in fact take little to no time properly setting up their guitars that are on display.
Anyhow, happy guitar hunting.