Hi, I think the experience is subjective and relational to trying out each guitar before you buy. I was working overseas for 6 months in 2007 and i went to the local guitar shop and purchased a sunburst chinese-made squire strat with the intention of leaving the thing behind when i returned home. I didn't. I liked the sound of the wood body so much acoustically, i eventually stopped playing all of my other guitars.
However, i have changed a lot.
The bridge was the worst factor and did not intonate, so i dropped in a wilkinson replacement. And this of all the changes, was the wow factor; I never before realised how bad a bridge could be.
I didn't like the electrics, I thought the pickups sounded brittle, but I don't like the electric sound of strats anyway, so that might just be my prejudice, and if not for the thing being cheap, i never would have bought a fender style guitar in the first place. I created a new soundboard or whatever the plastic thingy is called that holds the pots and pickups, and i replaced the electrics with a p90 Les Paul circuit.
I have a new neck, 2 actually, but i have never put these on . . . yet . . . one day maybe, when i can let the thing go long enough to allow a luthier to make the change.
The guy who sold me the guitar said the tuners were dodgy, and i have a new set here, but again, as with the new neck, they haven't been put on. I gave the screw that adjusts pressure on the plastic bush a crank on each tuner the first day i got the guitar and i have never had any issues with the guitar going out of tune even though the tuners are cheapies. I play with flatwound 10s.
I think the most important thing is to try before you buy. If the shop has 10 to choose from, try all 10.
