I have a bound-neck Stagg 335 clone which I bought to be mod-ed and experimented on. Out of the box okay naman siya. So far I've changed the stock tuners with locking ones, swapped-in a graphite nut, changed the TOM bridge with a locking one with graphite saddles, waxed the pups and filed-down the fret ends. Kinda strange having done such major changes on such a low cost axe. Thing is I just needed a platform to put in those mods so starting with a cheap axe made sense. Don't get me wrong - the stock parts that went into the guitar were decent and didn't have anything wrong with them (except for the fret sprout, which is easy to fix). Funny but I get to use this axe more than my all original MIJ and Floyd-ed strats.
There are crappy Staggs and there are decent to sweet playing ones just as there are good and bad branded ones (kahit mid to late fifties Les Pauls sila). You just have to try them out and are willing to walk away from a bad sounding/playing one. I was lucky enough to come across a sweet sounding one so its being cheap only made things better. This definitely is a keeper so resell value is not an issue for me. As far as GAS is concerned, buy with your ears, your hands and your wallet. you can't go wrong there.