There are soulless guitars out there, & soulless guitarists, but if there are PRS's out there that are sub par, they'd by far be the exception rather than the rule, which is certainly not the case with other brands in the SE or S2 price range.
At the end of the day, most guitarists play the guitar that they felt called to them; a bad guitar doesn't summon you, it's more likely a guitar you settled on, because you felt it was within your budget.
I think you should always buy the best guitar you can afford, & if you can't afford it, save up, sell something to make up the difference, or whatever.
Life's too short for crap guitars, & from my experience, when you buy a sub par guitar, you make up the difference in cost getting it set up & modded by a tech, that you could have spent getting a better guitar in the first place.
I find it odd that so many choose a PRS (from whatever range) then choose to mod it.
To my mind, so much thought, craftsmanship, & effort has gone into selection of materials including hardware, that most PRS's come out just about as good as they can be.
I do get that some prefer to buy an SE, then mod it to be more like a core or S2 model; but really, by the time you've spent that money, you probably could have bought the real deal, without all the sweat.
You can dial up tone & effects with pedals & digital gear, but you can't substitute for practice, experience, feel & technique.
Just as a bad guitar player can make a good guitar sound crap, & good guitarist can make a crap one sound fantastic, it comes down to feeling at one with a guitar; doesn't matter if its PRS, Gibson, Fender, Gretch or whatever, if it doesn't feel right in your hands, your'e not going to get a good sound out of it.
Just check out the Youtube clips of guitarists demos of guitars, & you'll see exactly what I mean.
People that say this or that brand is rubbish are underestimating how much tone comes from the player, & overestimating how much difference it makes what it says on the headstock.
All that said, most brands let a few lemons slip through QC in their factories, & you've only got to encounter one of them & it sours your perception of that brand.
I wouldn't have said I was a fan of any particular brand before, as all guitar brands & styles have their individual pros & cons, but having owned a couple of SE's for a few months, I can say that though I'd be willing to trade up or sell some of my guitars to upgrade, I'd see no reason to do so with a PRS.
The one thing all good guitarists would agree on is that there is no substitute for practice.
You can't improve without putting in the time & effort, & it doesn't take long letting dust settle on your guitars for the same to happen to your skills & technique.
It doesn't matter how many or what type of guitar/s you have, you can only get good at it by playing.