Originally Posted by: Slipin LizardI was listening to a TED Talks episode a while back, and they were talking about how too much selection these days can actually make us feel less happy with our purchases. There's always something "better" that you could have bought. I think this can be true with guitars too.... imagine yourself back in time, in a small town with a little music store. You tell the shop owner you want an electric guitar, and he opens up a catalog with a black & white advertisement for the new Fender Stratocaster with "Tremelo Action"... you slap down your deposit, wait 3 weeks for the big day, it arrives, and you fall in love! Fast forward to today, where you have 100's of guitars to choose from and supposedly one of those is the "perfect" choice just for you... but which one? The sheer number of choices can be over-whelming and leave you with a feeling that you could have done better...

Too much selection can also paralyze you in your purchase. Back in 2000, I remember being overwhelmed with the choices in strats - there was Made in America, Made in Mexico, Made in China (Malaysia maybe?). There was the American Standard, the Deluxe, the 60's tribute, the 50's (maybe 70's) tribute. At the time, you could choose between a fixed or floating bridge. Want single coil pickups? Perhaps humbuckers? Perhaps a combination? Oh, and what color would you like? Even with research I had done for hours online, I was there for about 4 hours.

Mind you - this is all just from one manufacturer!!

So Slipin Lizard, we can agree here :-).