Other good set-ups: "Take my wife..."
(couldn't resist).
Similar situation: I decided to take up the guitar after years of futsing aroung, go into a good store, spend a pretty good deal of money on a guitar, and can't do anything with it. Give up. 4 years later, I get so frustrated that I go and buy another guitar of a different type, just so I can strum something. Life improves. Finally I decide to take lessons. Lesson X, I mention that I have this steel-string guitar, a Seagull, and I have never used it but once or twice. Hated it and me. Rick F. takes a look at it and says, this is a dud guitar, the thing is out of tune for real. He burrows away on it for weeks, patches it up, and voila, I am playing it all the time. All this time it never occurred to me that I was not to blame, and that you could fix a guitar! Lost 4 years. Really.

yours, Peter T.