It probably matters less than we think, but the things about a guitar that make us buy and keep it, and sit with it and noodle on it for hours, isn't always about tone. There's a toy-like quality about a guitar, why we love quilted tops, or a shell-pink finish, the shape of it, the aesthetic of it. There's history, there's story, the music that was built on it, the personalities involved with it. Maybe the word gear is somehow a bit impersonal, like it was a hand drill- guitars can be an intensely personal thing. So there's a touchy thing there, that when the question is asked, 'does gear matter?, it becomes an invasion of someone's personal journey into an attachment to the instrument.