To Death55: About Hammett I agree with you to some degree. I know there many guitarists who are better in soloing, and I also know that his technique is not that good(well, still better than mine, but if a Guitar player with 10 months[which would be me]with average practicing time of 3 hours is close to play a solo what Hammet calls"his hardest solo to perform live" (blackened)this is certainly not a good sign for him.
But: I´d like to see all of you Hammett "enemies", which I´ve seen in many other forums, like to see writing a solo like blackened, struggle within, wherever I may roam, sandman,... because then you would have kicked hundred of thousands people´s ass with your solos.
What i wanna say is that Hammett of course shouldn´t get an award for best Guitar Player of the Year, but still: if so many fans love many of his solos and could listen to them over and over again, he can´t just be bad!