I have a Gordon Smith guitar. It's not very well finished, with sharp edges of the frets along the edge of the neck. There are also other issues with the neck, according to a luthier who I once showed it to. However it has some great positives. The back of the neck has a nice asymmetric shape that feels comfortable when your hand is wrapped around it. Other guitars feel "wrong" after playing this one. The pickups are excellent too, not powerful, just great tone. Although it's passive, it sounds active in the sense that no matter how you set the controls i.e. combinations of volumes/tones/coil-taps) it never sounds weak. Overall the good points outweigh the bad for me.