In my opinion, one would be hard pressed to find a guitar that dosen't play good nowdays (with a proper setup).
That's what I thought, too, so when I saw a chance to buy a baritone from Rondo Music for less than $150 (with case), I jumped. Out of the box the ends of the frets were like twenty two little razor blades poking out both sides of the fretboard. The highest eight or ten frets of most strings played on or two different notes. I mean, this stuff isn't hard to fix, but it's not a simple basic setup at that point. I actually took it in to have it done by a "pro", but the guy came in, took it apart, and the nobody heard from him for like a week. Turns out he went to jail... So I had to beat on the frets and file the edges, and I have neither the experience or the patience to more than a half-assed job. You can play it now*, but I know for a fact that Guitar Fetish would not have let this out the door even at the price I paid.
So then when I saw a chance to buy a Tele style 12 string for less than $150, I was expecting it to be a miserable mess, but I figured at least I'd have some parts to work with. I think this was one of those kits from eBay that somebody put together and finished and then sold on Amazon, and whoever did it did a pretty damn good job. The fret ends could use a little bit of love, but not near as bad as the baritone. I haven't had it long, but I'm suspicious of the tuners (twice as critical on a 12!), but otherwise I'm actually having to hold myself back from playing it on everything.
So I guess the point is that reasonably shaped and flat necks and decent hardware are pretty easy nowadays, but it's the finer details that seperate the surprisingly cheap dream homes from the slightly too-expensive fixer-uppers. That is one of the reasons I recommend Guitar Fetish. They inspect every guitar that comes across the ocean to them to make sure it meets their standards. If it has one little cosmetic thing wrong with it, it goes in the Clearance Section at a hefty discount. If there's anything that makes it play poorly or really needs fixed, it goes in Luthier's Special for almost nothing. And they have great customer service and a decent return policy. I definitely understand where you'd be hesitant to buy without trying, but I am confident that if you don't like what you get from them it will be about personal taste, not the quality of the product itself.
*Actually, it's got the Jazzmaster style floating bridge with all of the "string piping out of saddles" bullshit that implies, and with the fatter strings, it's that much worse. I can't actually play it because I can't keep the Low B in the saddle. I need to try shimming the neck, but haven't gotten to it yet.
