While I love to gaze lovingly at such creations and marvel at the work and craftsmanship required to build such a thing, I believe I'd much rather have a guitar that fit me to a T, was pleasing but not overly ostentatious to the eye and sounded great. Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder...and my current Tele redo might be too much for some. But I'd be afraid to get a pick near that one.

spacey
I don't know Mike.
 
Here is the build thread.
Better than anything the mag would do anyway LOL.

Wow.  I must have spent 90 minutes at least on that forum and on Virgil's website!  One thing I learned from my last custom (the Gaudy Paul that Space Cowboy now owns) is that I don't need as many of the extras (like detailed inlays), but I want it to be the body style, neck scale and radius, and weight that I prefer.  THEN I want the wood grain to pop!
 
I actually far prefer his second guitar to the first, however the different kind of inlay he did on the really expensive guitar has my interest - more than a normal inlay actually!

I very much appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship in things like extraordinary inlay work like that, but I have a rule:
 
I'll pay for figured wood, but otherwise I don't pay for cosmetics.

drewfx1
I very much appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship in things like extraordinary inlay work like that, but I have a rule:
 
I'll pay for figured wood, but otherwise I don't pay for cosmetics.

So you don't wear makeup on stage then?  

mike_mccue
Spacey,
 If you ever ask me to photo your guitars I'll be sure to use a long lens that has near zero spherical distortion so that it all looks straight and great.
 
 :-)
 
 
 best regards,
mike

Man you don't know how much I would have loved to have you photograph my builds.
I wish shipping costs weren't such a big factor. Maybe I should move LOL.