OK, I haven't had time to read the whole thread...
Here's what I see. FMIC bought Guild, eviscerated the dealers force, and essentially gave Guild to the local Fender dealer. And that's the problem. Most guitar store frankly don't have any clue about how to SELL a guitar. They're mostly just order-takers. For Fender, that's great. People come in wanting a Strat, Tele, P bass, Twin Reverb, etc. But most people specifially looking for a "good" acoustic are buying with their eyes so it's Martin, Taylor, and Gibson. But you have to talk people into trying and experiencing Guilds (I know, I managed a guitar store from 1977-1988 and we were a Guild, Gibson, Fender, Yamaha, Martin, Ovation, Takamine dealer). If you don't do that they die in your inventory.
Now combine that with what I saw locally where the sales rep loaded up all the dealers. One store in our relativley small market area had two SF IV, three SF III, two F412, and about 12 other Guilds around 2000. And they wound up selling most of them for too close to cost to make any money. Those guitars hung on the wall for way too long so they got a reputation of not being good guitars.
If FMIC was smart they'd market the guitars well, set up commited dealers, and push them. And they'd settle down, admit that Corona can make great solid body guitars but not acoustics, admit that the Tacoma thing died in infancy, but make sure that the Kaman people get all the resources they need to make excellent guitars.
The Kaman people already know how to make great guitars. I don't like Ovations, but the US ones have always been very well made guitars with enviable attention to details. The tops, bridges, necks, fret work, fit-and-finish are top notch all the way. It's no big stretch to make all wood guitars. And they already have a history of making excellent electric guitars. Hamer took no dive in quality when they moved from Illinois to Connecticut.
It's quite possible that they'll create a line worthy of the Guild history. And we have to remember that pretty much all through Guild's history, they've suffered from lousy marketing. My faith in FMIC is actuall bouyed by this. When they bought Guild way back 13 years ago I was expecting them to destroy the line by making it an import-only line, just like Gibson did to Epiphone after 1969. They haven't done that...
... yet.
jte
