Nice thread. And agree ako sa observation ng iba na electronics makes a lot of difference in mid gain / high gain electric guitar tone.
I found the discussion regarding use of expensive gear informative. I agree that we all want or probably dream to own one of those boutique gears. But our wants do not always translate to our needs, hence you can see a lot of players who can afford boutique, still go for standard/common gear. Going back to the topic - I believe that "Great tones" can be arrived at using average/standard (I don't want to say cheap...) gear. Mas madali nga lang makukuha kung boutique route (as implied by those with experience - sadly I haven't tried yet) - but with hard work and luck we can also get that same great tone. Real world examples are professionals still using standard gear for recording. If great tone was exclusive for expensive gear - pare pareho na malamang ang gamit ng lahat...
Since tone is subjective, can anyone point us to some examples of "great tone" using boutique/expensive gear? Probably a good contrast to the video on the original post. When I think about GREAT guitar tones, I can only think about particular artists who all MOSTLY use standard guitars (strat, LP, Tele etc.) and gears. Are there any recent artists that is universally accepted to have "great tone" using boutique gear?