Some early Alvarez and Yamaha guitars, talking 70s here, could hold there own with anything. Some I've played I'd take over some Guilds I've played. The main problem with these is many need neck resets and owners, wrongly in my opinion, don't think they are worth it. Some luthiers will do a bolt on conversion which by many accounts restores these into playable condition.
I bought a Guild F 40 from Gryphon years ago, which developed a poor neck angle. They deemed it not worthwhile for them to reset properly, but they gave me trade in value on it. Frank ford had a method that involved cutting the fingerboard and applying force. He said they would only do it on instruments they owned as it was 50/50 the neck would snap off. In this case it was successful as I later saw it for sale. The fingerboard looked very strange at the body joint, but it saved a guitar.
A friend showed me his early Yamaha in dire need of a neck reset. I would have swapped that Guild for it in a heartbeat. It sounds great even with a poor break angle. So it really depends on the guitar. I had another friend who bought an Alverez of and old vintage that was insane for the $200 he paid for it. The Japanese had it going on in the seventies. Even the Epiphone Texan was built there for a time. Those were far better than what is coming out of China these days. I am only talking their top tier instruments here. They made plywood instruments too, and I think a cheap Yamaha today is better than and old one.