What is best for most guitar players is to buy the guitar that best suits their needs, whatever they are. For some this may be a PRS, for some non-name clone of some popular model, and for most something in between.
My primary guitar is
a PRS Custom 24 and I consider it worth the $ I paid. It has proven to be a very dependable quality made instrument with great feel and tone. I also have various Fender and Gibson models, which are also good guitars.
The concept of buying a guitar with the plans to immediately replace the electronics generally sounds like not the best way to choose a guitar. I believe most would be better served to find a model that suits their needs as originally purchased. While there are special cases where this approach makes sense, for the average buyer it does not.
PRS is not a big company. Their name, and whatever size that name bears, is due more to the style and quality of the instruments they make and little else. The look of a PRS guitar varies by model and features. One can get them as plan or fancy as desired. The look you purchase is driven not by PRS, but by what you want in your guitar.
While the shape of the PRS single cut model is similar to
the Gibson Les Paul, it is not the same. Anyone who has even held and played both would have no trouble at all at telling them apart. To some extent all guitars have a similar shape. They all generally have this bigger wider thing at one end and a long skinny thing that sticks out the other end.
My opinion is that the Gibson lawsuit against PRS is total BS. PRS went from an unknown guitar company in Maryland to the third largest US maker in something like 20 years. They did this based mostly on the quality and style of their guitars. Gibson on the other hand did not introduce a single new successful model during the same time frame. Their success is still mostly based on a single guitar they started making about 50 years ago, the Les Paul. Since they failed to compete in the market based on either price or quality, they then choose to go after their new competition with lawyers.
Ed