Another way is to realize that, it isn't the tools, it's the carpenter. Good tools might help open some doors for you, but you've got to do the work of walking through the door and getting to the next stage in your musical journey.
While I agree 100% with this, I will also re-state the old saw, "Horses for courses." And in the case of guitars, one of the "courses" is the player him/herself.
That is to say, certain instruments are better suited to certain players, and vice-versa.
You're right that it's the carpenter, not the tool, however, the right carpenter with a tool that inhibits his particular needs, is going to be a less able carpenter.
This has really come home to me since my surgery "adventures" of the past year. Before that, I was absolutely, positively, 100% neck-carve-agnostic, and scale-length-neutral! Along came issues with the nerves in my hand, and suddenly, all the fuss about this stuff suddenly
mattered. A lot!
Some of my guitars became more difficult to play, some were easier for my hand. Now that the healing has progressed a little, I'm back to playing all of them again, but it was touch and go there for awhile, and I can see how having the right fit can be a
very big deal.
I also noticed more than ever that my ability to coax a tone I wanted to hear out of a given instrument depended not only on the design of the instrument, but the feel of it. How it feels in my hand, how my fingers lay out on the fretboard...all of that mattered more than ever not just to the notes I could play, but to the tone the combination of my hands and guitar could make!
Not only that, but I also found that I could play certain things more effectively on, say, a Regular neck, and other things more effectively on, say, a Pattern or 594 neck (my 20th PS Anni is 594). I have to say that I was truly surprised in a way I haven't been since the 90s when I had to deal with the narrow string spacing on a Rick 12 string.
Maybe one notices these things more when one is forced by circumstances to play slowly, and concentrate harder than ever on simply getting each note to sound cleanly at all? In any case, I've reached the inescapable conclusion that the feel of the guitar matters to the outcome more than I previously had imagined.
Of course the inevitable question arises, couldn't a person just get used to one feel, and develop facility on that instrument regardless of one's hands, etc.? I'm sure that's true to an extent, but my takeaway is that it's like having a pair of shoes that don't fit well, and a pair of shoes that are a perfect fit. You're probably going to choose the shoes that fit well (unless, like me, you would suffer through an evening with lousy fitting shoes because they look cooler
).
