My theory of the progression of manufacturing for some product goes like this: stage 1: figure out how to make a thing stage 2: figure out how to make the thi

My theory of the progression of manufacturing for some product goes like this: stage 1: figure out how to make a thing stage 2: figure out how to make the thing well stage 3: figure out how to make the thing cheaply stage 4: figure out how to make the thing well, cheaply I'd say that for electric guitars, the '59 Les Paul was at the early end of stage 2, and sometime in the last decade or so we've gradually transitioned into stage 4. One might argue that there's also a stage 5: figure out how to make the thing well and cheap, but customized to a specific user's preferences. Right now, that's the main reason why one would have an electric guitar custom made by a luthier rather than buy a factory-made instrument. (I like to mess around with just-intonation-based tuning systems, and have ended up building or modifying a lot of instruments simply because guitars in the tunings I want simply aren't for sale.)