Edit: Maybe I should add this: I'm not being ironic.
It can be hard to tell sometimes, a little courtesy never hurts so I'm applauding your tact.
Although I have no personal experience with GAD's, I do recall one new member's (DCannon) meticulous breakdown of the construction of his GAD F30.
He was in the enviable position of being able to compare his new MIC instrument with a vintage Hoboken F30 and as a professional musician was well qualified to critique tonal and construction differences between the two. (Which, by the way, I think TXbumper is, as well)
He mentioned fretboard not quite as finely finished as American version, and he actually replaced the tuning machines.
Overall he liked it and gave the guitar high ratings but it was the first time I ever saw somebody give such a comprehensive eval of a GAD instrument, "warts and all", with no apparent bias towards the domestic or imported origins of the guitars.
And in the end we knew where some of the "economies" had been achieved in the MIC product.
Another question occurs to me regarding bracing: We know New Hartford implemented red spruce bracing on all the guitars (and at least
some in Tacoma); but I don't recall ever seeing any such detail being spec'd in the MIC instruments.
So leaving any possible preconceived expectations out of the equation, we have seen proof of quantifiable differences in quality level between the two lines.
By all accounts I can recall, GADs are a great value for the money, but there ARE definable upgrades in quality of materials available in the American instruments.
Another example: I've never heard any complaints about the MIC woods themselves, and Fender claimed they actually bought the wood and shipped it to the factory themselves, to assure it all met their QA standards.
But I strongly suspect
Fender's corporate QA standards weren't as stringent as
Guild's factory standards when it came to grading wood lots.
It must be remembered that all the MIC product was made, controlled, and marketed by Fender who owned Guild and all the brand intellectual property, but (as far as I've ever seen) there was no input from Guild itself except perhaps initially when the product was named "
Guild
Acoustic
Design"
It's only supposition on my part that Fender used that acronym to indicate that certain elements of Guild intellectual property regarding construction techniques were used in these guitars, and they pretty much implied that, in the spring '04 Guild price list where I first saw the line, but there was no other connection to US-built Guilds beyond that.