Depends entirely upon your playing style - anything that involves serious strumming, acoustic or electric, you will hit the finish and scratch it. I don't have a pickguard on my PRS and don't miss having it - didn't mean that some dick who isn't as careful as me didn't manage to stick a few scratches on it while it was hanging on the rack in the store... but I don't really thrash that guitar much. Acoustics, although I play a lot of fingerstyle, I also do lots of open tuning combo pick/strum Ian Andersony sort of stuff as well, and so I'm glad about the guard...