Have you seen EVH live in concert? The guy is every bit a showman as Jimi Hendrix was. And he is more consistent than Jimi ever was--as Jimi was too splashed a third of the time to give a good performance. ((it's a fact, read up on it)) Not to say that EVH was never drunk or anything during a performance--but he always gave a pretty good one. Hendrix did not.

You say Jimi blended blues and psychedelia. EVH blended rock and virtuoso jazz/classical lines--what's your point? Hell, eruption's tapping part is taken straight from Vivaldi. I would think that blues and psychedelia are easier to combine than virtuoso stylings and rock. Not only that, but EVH also took the whammy bar to insane extremes. Sure, Jimi divebombed every now and again, but Eddie is the one who really made it happen in terms of whammy effects. And he also helped design the Floyd Rose.

Again, Jimi also wasn't the first to play very loudly either. A lot of his contemporaries were experimenting with similar things. The same thing you used to dismiss Van Halen can be applied to Hendrix---he was more commercial ready and bombastic than others who were equally talented than he was.

EVH also played a strat, it was just a modified one. Jimi didn't have the same impact upon guitar design and whatnot that Eddie did, either.