Re: Epiphone or Gibson SG?
In my experience, the Epiphone guitars are similar in shape to the Gibson counterparts, but they are slightly different in size, not exactly the same shape- for example- I had a Epi reissue Dot 335, then I bought a real Gibson 335, the Gibson would fit in the Epi's case, but the Epi would not fit into the Gibson case. THis was confirmed by my bud at my local GC. If you look at the Epi SG, it is a slightly different size the the Gibson SG. mostly around the body's waste, and the cutaways. Most of the electronics except for the pickups in some cases, are crap. THe selector switches are notorious for their going bad quickly. The pots usually aren't the same quality as Gibson's.
IMO, go for the real thing!
"It's a shoddy workman indeed, that blames his tools!" The Rev Billy Gibbons