interesting. i played one for a moment one time and it made me weep, maybe all i need is the cheaper one you mentioned.
function is always most important to me
I'll let you in on a little secret, back in the early 90's Ibanez was making the fucking BEST guitars for $400-600, guitars that were better built then anything they sell for $2000 these days, they were all the Japanese made RG's, from 1989-1997 , you can grab one off ebay for $300 and I guarantee it will play 100x better then anything Ibanez has made since 1998 priced 3x more, I own 6 of these mid 90's RG's
it's only the Japanese ones though, after 1998 Ibanez cheaped out and moved production to korea, taiwan, etc. and quality standards dropped to shit.