The craftsmanship is astounding on guitars. Not only must the isntrument be braced properly for strength, but the woods must all match or "meet up" tonally to produce the sounds that they do. If you thought that speaker selection was hard, try buying a guitar. Between the eye-candy factor, guitars all sound so distinctively different - and they all feel and play differently too.
My Taylor is drastically different from the Martins that I also demoed. The Taylor was bright and crisp, a little "thin" maybe, but the playability was very high, and the string "separation" (the ability to distinguish one string from another when playing chords) was awesome. Compare that to the Martin, which has a thicker neck (more like a Gibson Les Paul), a bigger, rounder sound, just a playable, but notably "muddier" or "darker" when playing chords. It's very much like speaker tastes - "laid back" vs. "up front" etc. Neither are "better," but they are different.
On a side note - I, too, unfortunately, do not find as much tmie to play my guitars. I moved into a real small apartment after college, went to law school, and foudn basically no time to play (except when I'd do a show at a bar, which was once in the bluest moon). I'm looking forward to moving into my new place in the City (Dupont Circle) in a short time. The place is much bigger, and I hope to be able to keep my stuff out and more accessible than it is now.
