That the guitar is not only an instrument, but its a piece of art as well! So the guitar has to not only have that great feel and play to it, but has to have that eye appeal as well. Some folks will let their guitars go and treat it as they would a baseball bat or a hammer...
If you can't set that guitar up in your living room on a stand, and draw attention to it whenever you have company come over, then it's not the eye grabber that it should be.. Art man... and then you can wow them when you throw out a few tunes for them as well :D
Price wise, well, that is up to you.. I've seen some good low dollar guitars around and have even liked a few of them.. but with me having several already in the living room, I'm not going to jump right out and give the wife a reason to kick my ass right now :D
I have been kicking around the idea of building myself a nice Les Paul.. I've been watching these kits fly around on Ebay.. but am VERY wary of what quality of product I am seeing.. I see some of these people rate the product as a B type and that they sell the A type.. and then I see all these others that don't have ratings at all... would suck getting that guitar all together and then have a warped neck or shorter than it should be... a misaligned pickup hole or something...
A friend of mine has made himself a B E A Utiful Bass Guitar... kept it all natural, stained and varnished it.. very beautiful Bass... he even keeps a picture of it in his wallet as if it were his child :D Had that thing appraised and was offered 4 grand for it! He dumped about 1200 into the parts for it...
I told him he could always donate it to my Art exhibit :D