Thanx for the feedback, glad that your purchase was a happy one and exactly what my view of a PRS is. I had very bad experiences with another brand in a what you would maybe call a boutique store.I bought my SE CE24, sight unseen, sound unheard from a reputable dealer. There were no QC related issues that should have been addressed before leaving the seller. Smaller boutique sellers do that for you, where as most big box sellers will not.
They have their own fully locally built brand and carry various other brands. The more than 1000 euros guitar had fretwork worse than the worst and cheapest Harley Benton or Squier I have ever seen, a ski jump, a truss rod that could not straighten the neck and a few other things. The answer was, we can't take it back because we are not an official dealer. They offered that the 14 year old that sweeps the floor would do the fretboard for free, no, thank you. I guess the lesson was to do due diligence and check if a shop is an official dealer and has a good reputation. I may do that with my next PRS purchase.
Europe is different than the US in that returning or exchanging products bought in shops is not self evident. It is more like dealing with an insurance company. A good shop may be helpful, but they might still try to say that an action of 2.5 mm / .10 is normal to low and fine and that you can't expect a 1000 euro guitar to ever have an action of 1.6mm/ .06 - .07 . So to avoid that kind of discussion I resorted to the big online shops, that make no problem of returns. There is even a shop in The Netherlands that sent me an email, before I ordered online, that they don't do any returns because 'people play the guitar for gigs in the weekend, spill beer over it and then return it'. Unfortunately pimples, beer, and gigs in a shed are long gone in my case, but I still felt insulted by the attitude; just as an illustration.