When you find a guitar you want to own, for a price you're willing to pay, its worth it.
I strongly recommend making that choice with your eyes closed, and your ears and mind open. Back in 1984, I found out that my dream guitar was a Yamaha SBG 1000, not a Gibson Les Paul Custom. I still own the SBG, and its the one guitar in my collection that I will probably never sell.
The bottom line is: The guitar you have in your hands is the one you are thinking about buying. The name on the headstock may give you some idea what to expect, but the guitar you're holding may have been made on a bad day. Or a good one. You can't know that until you try it out.
My point is: don't make your choice based on reputation. One of the reasons I wanted a Les Paul was my admiration for Jimmy Page. LOL... a lot of his stuff was recorded with a Fender Telecaster!
You make your music with your rig. Its up to you to decide what that is.
I did a one-on-one comparison between a Gibson Les Paul Custom and a Yamaha SBG 1000 in 1984. The Yamaha won. I still have it. As I remember, it went like this:
[u]Gibson:[/u]
- seriously heavy
- mahogany neck, mahogany body with carved maple top
- single cutaway
- no strengthening at neck-headstock transition
- sloppy masking - black paint smears on the binding
- mother-of-pearl inlays on head & fretboard
- rough ends on some of the frets
- three-position pickup selector
- 2 Tone & 2 Volume controls
- 2 humbucker pickups
- tunomatic bridge with stop tailpiece
- action set 'medium' - a bit high for my liking
- playability: good - string spacing about the same as an acoustic
- sound: very good - smooth, dark, almost muddy on neck pickup
- price (in 1984 Canadian dollars): $1300 - case extra
[u]Yamaha:[/u]
- seriously heavy
- mahogany neck, mahogany body with carved maple top
- double cutaway
- 'volou' strengthening at neck-headstock transition
- excellent masking - no paint smears anywhere (black - same as the Gibson)
- mother-of-pearl inlays on head & fretboard
- all frets smoothly crowned, no rough ends
- three-position pickup selector
- 2 Tone & 2 Volume controls with push-push (like a ball-point pen!) coil-tap switches
- 2 humbucker pickups
- tunomatic bridge with stop tailpiece
- action set 'low' - no fret buzz anywhere
- playability: very good - string spacing a bit narrower than the LP
- sound: excellent - smooth, sweet, better clarity than the LP, still very ballsy when cranked
- price (in 1984 Canadian dollars): $640 - plush lined hardshell case included
A note about the neck-headstock transition: The part of the neck, where the nut is located, is a critical weak spot in many guitars. The layback angle of the head means that most of this part is cross-grain. The pocket cut into the head, above the nut, for the truss rod adjuster, further weakens this area. Gibsons seem to be particularly vulnerable in this regard. Ask any guitar tech about this, and you are likely to hear a lot of horror stories about Gibsons that 'lost their heads'. The Yamaha has a 'volou' (sp?); the neck 'flares' thicker on the back, adding a lot of strength to this area. It doesn't interfere with the playability at all. Its like the 'shoulders' of the head simply continue around to the back of the neck.
I went out that day to get the Les Paul Custom I had been dreaming of for years. I had no idea Yamaha made a similar guitar, but that's the one that came home with me. That was in 1984. I wrote this review in Harmony Central on 21 September of last year. After 18 years, its still my Brand X - the standard by which all others are judged, and none have been better for me.