Back to the original topic, almost:

My kid brother has a run-of-the-mill, good-but-not-great "Yammerhammer" dread -- nothing special, NOT one of those "L-series" items. He recently took up guitar after "retiring" from many years on the road as a full time rock/R&B drummer; now he's a husband and father with a day job as a schoolteacher. He's become a pretty good amateur player since he quit gigging even part-time as a drummer, and has even landed a gig as moderator of the Guitar Club at the middle school where he teaches.

My observations comparing his Yamaha to my vintage Martin: the tone is somewhat thinner (not surprisingly), and the action is *painfully* higher, to me at least -- really hard on the fingertips.

(I have complaints about my D-18's action, noted in at least one other recent thread, and am considering getting a neck reset; however, brotherman's Yamaha is much harder to play and has much higher action than my Martin.)

The basic sound of this Yamaha box is a "given" and can't be substantially improved (except perhaps electronically), but it occurs to me that this guitar could probably be made *much* more playable if turned over to a competant luthier. Adjustment/replacement of the nut and saddle might be all that's necessary, and even if the neck requires realignment, the instrument at least has an adjustable truss rod (unlike my 1969 Martin) making the job relatively simple.

The only question here: how much do you invest in a guitar that's only worth a couple hundred in the first place? On the one hand, any instrument you play and plan to keep deserves whatever maintenance/improvement you can afford. On the other hand, there's always understandable reluctance to "throw good money after bad."