I'm gonna have to agree with the last guy, and add that Eddie isn't even that technical, he wasn't even for the time he was famous. I'm not saying he sucks, he is a pretty damn good guitar player, but if you think he even gets close to the kind of technique that any shredder from even the eighties then you have to be deaf. I don't think it's all about technique I'm just saying, yeah maybe he is "technically" better than Hendrix but I would say that Hendrix is a much better player creatively and within the context of a song and I wouldn't use technical ability as an argument when your talking about Van Halen. He was pretty sloppy (at least early on I haven't heard anything recent of his) ecspecailly his tapping. Eddie just took a few techniques that very few ppl had heard before and used them in super excess, now he had the skill to play them fast and played and "dared" to play faster than pretty much anyone before him.

I also would like to add that Zappa was around at the same time as both these guys and is probably on the level with (and in my opinion more interesting) Hendrix. He didn't write music so that he could show off his guitar skills but he had them, look up some of his solo's they tend to be pretty long and are always really kickass, and he could play really fast. Just wanted to throw that out there.

I think the fact that he was interested in such weird and varied music makes many people over look him when talking about great players, also he is probably just as if not more influential as Hendrix, because he has influenced more than just other guitarist. It almost seems to be like a trendy thing to do now to mention Zappa as one of your influences, I hear him mentioned by famous modern musicians in pretty much every genre.