Okay, I'll try and sound a little less cranky this time. Please forgive my previous rantyness.
1) There's still issues like wood quality, and how they're put together.
2) I know that full well, don't get me wrong. They still do have a kind of monopoly on the market, as I see it, with all the kids who are going out to buy their first "real" guitar, and people who still believe they are the dog's bollocks, because they were in the old days.
3) Yes, they are conservative and boring to ME! I should have pointed that out earlier, sorry. I know that Gibson aren't much better in the conservative department, but at least they make a point out of making variations on their old designs, and have a few more radical body shapes in their roster. Just like more or less every other company out there.
Fender does have a few "special" models every now and again, but still nothing impressive.
I can in some way understand the bad feelings towards 7-strings, because they still have that whole Korn/Nu-metal stigma attached to them, to some degree. But still, the fact that they haven't tried anything weird, tells me they are afraid to take chances in a market where doing just that is the way to get ahead of your competitors.
And I apologize if I sound rude now, but I can't help myself:
Yes, they revolutionized the guitar. SIXTY FUCKING YEARS AGO! Pretty much all other innovations since then, have been from other companies.
4) Godin won't beat them or become bigger. I wish to god they would, but it won't happen, because Fender will always have legions of fanboys defending their mediocre, soulless Rehashocasters. Fender fanboys are even worse than Ibanez fanboys sometimes, and that's bad. Very bad.
If you wanna play blues, fine, get a strat ( or an ES-335). If you wanna play country, get a tele.
But to me, that's all they're good for. You can't play metal on a Strat unless you mod it. You can't play hard rock on a tele, unless you put a humbucker in it.
I honestly believe that a lot of other companies make guitars that can do the fender sounds just as well as newer fenders, and then have other sounds at their disposal as well. Thank god for coil-splittable humbuckers.
Of course you can try and use a strat for everything, but in a lot of situations where it's not at home, it will come up short compared to other guitars. IMHO goddamnit, IMHO!
5) Well, good for you. You had one of their low-end RG's with stock pickups, which are admittedly teh suck, and were even worse back in the day. Try one of their high-end models, the ones that cost the same as american standard Strat, and tell me they're not
a) more playable than any newer production Fender could ever hope to be
b) More sonically versatile
"Vibe" is where it gets subjective, and where we can't argue. You think Ibanez's feel soulless, which I to some extent understand. They do have a more "technological" feel to 'em, I'll agree with you there. I just think it's a small sacrifice to make, in other to have the playability and sound of it.
I, on the other hand, think that Fenders are soulless, because they all look and sound the same to me. And i just don't like being limited in the way you are with a standard Strat. If i wanna play quiet and clean on my mean-ass seven-string, I'll just split the coils of the 'buckers, and turn it down.
If I wanna get heavy with a strat, I gotta go change pickups and all that crap.
Bear in mind, that my mindless ranting is directed at newer, production Fenders. The really old models, and the custom shop models, sound friggin' awesome, and have vibe in spades, but the newer ones have neither vibe nor tone, as I see and hear it.
Okay, I need to sleep now. I just hope I can restrain myself to keep the discussion friendly if it continues
