Guitar questions

I live in "PRS country" since I went to school where the factory was originally located (it was on Virginia, Ave in Annapolis, MD). It has since been moved about 10 miles east to Kent Island, MD. PRS is an interesting company, and also an interesting man. Much of his focus has been sustain in the instrument, and one of his consultants was Ted McCarty from Gibson (whom he named a guitar model after). He uses art students from the local college for a lot of his finishing work, so is very involved in the community and highly respected. Not a lot of Gibson usage that I have seen around here, it is mostly PRS and Fender.
 
That said, a great deal of a guitar boils down to mechanics (is the guitar rigid enough, and adjustable enough to fine tune parameters) and the electronics (how the pickups are constructed, their type, the quality of the components and what does the wiring "do"). For most guitars, the mechanical is the "limit" is some ways, but the electronics are fair game to those with the wherewithal and desire to modify them. A great deal of things boil down to your personal preferences and style, and whether "out-of-the-box" is your thing, or if you are a tinkerer.
 
Sad anecdote, and testimony to what type of person PRS is... when I bought my first guitar I stopped by PRS' shop when it was still in Annapolis and spoke to one of his employees for about 30 minutes outside (he was heading out of work and took the time to sit down and talk to me). At one point he said "You have unfortunate timing... PRS used to let the general public come in here to work on their guitars for just the cost of materials." When I asked him what happened, he turned and pointed to a sign on the front door that said "Reward $50,000" and a picture of the first "Dragon" inlay prototype that PRS himself had done. Apparently someone had come in to work on their guitar but walked out with his. I am still upset that someone would betray the kindness of others, but that seems to get more common as years pass by.

MakerDP
Another way they save a little is the all-maple neck on my Session does not have a skunk-stripe.

I’ve a couple of relatively recent (post 2000) Fender Teles without skunk stripes, one a 60s reissue with a rosewood board and one with a maple neck and separate maple board.

The reason Leo Fender put the stripe in was to save money. A truss rod had to be slotted into a solid one-piece maple neck/fingerboard somehow or other, and the alternative of drilling a long hole was more complicated to do and presumably more expensive. So instead his design took a length of maple, machined a slot out of it, fitted the truss rod into that then plugged the slot with a contrasting length of (I think) walnut. After which the neck went to be band-sawed, machined and sanded into shape.

When Fender moved to rosewood fingerboards in the early 60s the skunk stripe disappeared because on a neck with a seperate fingerboard the truss rod slot could be covered by the fingerboard so the stripe wasn’t needed.

Leo Fender was a genius at working out what was really needed for performance, what was the least expensive way of doing things at the factory and then combining the two into a solid marketable product.

Slugbaby
And Leo wasn't even a guitarist!

Ah, but he talked to lots of guitarists and listened to what they had to say about what they wanted and why they wanted it.

And he turned apparent negatives into positives. That weird maple bolt-on neck not only used less wood but was obviously far quicker and easier to machine and assemble than a traditional dovetailed glued joint. When it was introduced, attached to a guitar-shaped flat slab of ash, it attracted some criticism from the “traditionally” minded (and still does).

But Fender pointed out it had a big advantage over his rival’s mahogany glued-in necks:-

1. Maple is much stronger than mahogany to start with.
2. The in-line head provides enough string angle over the nut without the head having to tilt backwards or be scarfed on.

So when your Fender falls over, unlike those fancy G****n L*s P**l mahogany dovetailed necks with their tilted-back headstock that everyone is paranoid about snapping, that straight length of maple might dent but it won’t break. And if you do ever manage to snap the neck, the fix is easy, cheap and quick. Just order a replacement neck and bolt it in.

The man was truly a genius.