I like it, personally. They look great in person and play well.
Then again, I prefer solid-finished and/or minimalistic guitars 99% of the time. I'd rather have a V a solid black finish than in a boomerburst or clownburst finish, personally.
I think most Gibson USA's get some hate, and I never thought I'd see the day I'd defend Gibson, but they do have some stuff going for them. They do use "better" (or at least, more expensive to source) woods than most import guitars. At least when speaking of Mahogany. They're plek'd. They're also finished in a finish that's more expensive to apply which comes out lighter/less thick. Wether you believe that's "better" is up to you, but it's certainly different and contributes to how they sound. They also use decent quality aluminum hardware and those are Grover tuners. The pickups are not no-name Asian pickups either. The plastics are also their own house-brand. Probably outsourced, yeah, but I don't see many other companies using Gibson plastics either.
Are they better made than many imports? Maybe not, especially the similarly priced Japanese guitars or the highest-end Korean builds, but they are made in a country where labor is more expensive, and you gotta consider that for the pricing. I'm sure if they moved production out of the US and made something like MIM, their customer base (especially those buying from within the US) would soooooo not stop complaining.
I mean, they look plain, yeah, but that's not really a bad thing, is it?
I do agree, though. A big part of what you're paying for is the the Gibson brand. But then again, you don't really have to if you don't want to. And I do think part of the reason those are so expensive even if they're plain-looking is they don't make as many of those as they do, say, Les Paul Standards.
