I cannot blame Gibson for trying to increase market share
Remember when Fender put out the Tom Delounge signature Strat, 1 PU, no tone nob and MIM, sould for just over 300 and they sold hundreds of thousands of them. I understand that Tom's Mother (err I mean guitar tech) helped in it's development.
Gibson is just trying to sell guitars, and since they started watering down the line and entered the cheap guitar market, they now are stuck with having to make guitars attracktive to the kids who cannot afford a 2g Paul, so they need to convince them that made in Korea 5 hundred dollar KO is what a pop star is using. Sheesh even PRS has a SE line. Compare those to the regular line, but they sell like hotcakes.
Take a business out of the original ideas, introduce mass production, and watch quality get thrown out the window for new cheap products marketed by professionals who know nothing about the product.
If you think of it a bolt neck Fender is a POS compared to other guitars out there, but we all seem to own one and it is one of our main axes, all the way from beginners with KOs to guys like Clapton who could afford any axe he wanted.
