The thing with cheap automated guitars is that, although they can be made with some machine precision, in terms of cutting and some points of assembly, they often fall down in several crucial areas. One example is in the fretting - rub your hands along the fretboard and you'll often as not find that the fret edges are sharp and crude. The bindings are often equally cheap and crudely finished, and the detail of the finish will often be just adequate. Automation is good for the things which automation can do well - such as part cutting - but most good guitar makes have some element of manual assembly and finishing which makes the essential diffference. The instrument is inspected and tested at several points in the construction, ribbing, edge blocks, binding, fretting, polishing/lacquering, etc., are finished in meticulous detail. It's all that which makes a difference, plus the quality of the tonewoods.

Incidentally, Alex, I don't think we're much at odds re Torres and Taylor - an old pallett is equally as weird as papier-maché! :-)