I only started playing back in Feb 11, bought my first electric in August an Epiphone Lucille, never really got to grips with it, I honestly wanted to buy the Swingster but on recommendation of the shop didn't, now I know plenty more about guitars and what the different types do, so I sold my Lucille a couple of weeks back and picked up a lovely new shiny Swingster, it's amazing plays well feels better just all round much more my type of guitar!
all in all I love my Epi ;-)
have played a friends Gibson Les Paul which was nice, so that's really all I can compare it to for top end guitars, but I still would take the swingster over that, just gutted they didn't have the red wine instock so i picked up the black version instead.