I would avoid PRS because they bend you over and send you home with their cr@p just as much as Gibson does.
I couldn't have put it any better! You can add Fender "we're disgustingly overpriced and getting lazy living off the badge" Australia to that as well.
Fender is give and take. Strats and teles obviously aren't for everyone, and I'm more of a humbucker guy myself, but some of the more expensive Fenders are nice but I have not been very impressed by the cheaper models, and is we judge Fender's standards by their US Standard strat, then their standards are pretty low.
Gibson can be okay too but most of them are cr@p. The last non custom shop Les Paul I played with a good neck was a 1995 and I own it. Almost all the necks on the new ones come warped from the factory, but they never have any tension on the truss rod from the factory so the only way you can know if you have a good neck or not is to view where it's bowing.
I've played a few custom shops that were all quite good and this custom shop '58 that everything was absolutely perfect on except the neck is super fat, but you have to pay a lot for a custom shop (the '59s are $5000usd and the '58s and '60s sell for about $2500usd).
