Oh good lord, folks. I get that you have to drink the Kool-Aid to a certain extent to belong here, but the IQ of some of these posters might be dipping into the low-80's, from what I can tell. Anywho, I'll say my peace, before I bid thee all fond adieu: I'm not "trashing" the brand, nor do I want to return back to "1936 Weather", like Albert Einstein suggested before me. (Nor do I want to strip the good old Bozeman boys and their CNC machines of their healthcare benefits...what a strange comment to make).
I just came to point out that, maybe, just maybe, Gibson guitars are overpriced. You can delude yourselves about the perceived value of these guitars until kingdom come, but, ultimately, as consumers, you are being taken advantage of. There is nothing magical or special about a Gibson guitar's manufacturing process that warrants charging triple of what Godin does. This is pretty much a cold, hard incontrovertible fact when you consider the Gibson lineup outside the Custom Shop. Granted, I'm not a fan of how Seagull guitars are voiced (a matter of taste), but, if anything, their existence proves that high-quality, solid-wood guitars can be made in North America at a fraction of what the big three are charging.
I genuinely love Gibson guitars. I think they sound great. I even prefer them to Martin's and Taylor's. In fact, I love Gibson so much that I wish to see the brand survive after its bread and butter of gullible, oh-so-exploitable, pension-cashing baby boomers meet their end. It would be a shame if Gibson died out with them, having failed to tap into a market of young, burgeoning guitarists who lack the 1.5k needed to buy a decent-sounding, American-made, solid-wood Gibson guitar, at retail price.