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The pins don't seat nicely in the holes like the ones on my Collings (a superb small-shop built guitar I don't deserve and wouldn't be able to afford these days...they've gone up a LOT in price over the past decade!) They stick up unevenly 'cause the holes are just drilled straight and the pins are tapered and only go partway in. In my opinion (and the opinion of several of the guitar builders on the list), there's no excuse for that on expensive, high-end Martins. It takes about ten minutes to finish off details like that, and apparently they don't think it's worth paying someone to do it.

The opponents mostly say "Yeah, but most true guitar fanatics are gonna replace the pins with something fancier and mess with the holes anyway, so what's the big deal?" Or something like that. Me, I don't tinker, so it *would* bug me. Luckily I have the Toyota (or Lexus) of guitars -- perfectly finished and utterly dependable -- so it don't matter much, but....

I just think it's sad that they don't bother with some of the detail work. They make very good guitars, for the most part. Why not go all the way?

< /geeky guitarophile rant>