It's a really good question, and I'm not sure there's a "simple" answer really, but if there is, for me it's that we're all creative beings at heart (all of us humans). Every single one of us "creates" in some way or other. If you give us a "thing" that can be "improved" or "personalised", that's what we'll do to it eventually - and when we do it, we're "making" something "better".
If you'd just talked guitars, I wouldn't have jumped to this "generic" conclusion/suggestion. It's when you brought in the cars etc... Not everyone feels the need to mod their guitars, or all of their guitars, but I'd be surprised if they weren't modifying something.
If we're talking guitars, the first mod I can remember doing (or having done for me, actually) was my JV strat the minute I got it - replaced the 3-way switch with a 5-way, and converted it to master tone. Both of those mods were to make it easier/better to use - I think that's what drives/motivates most mods? In that case it actually achieved the object, but it doesn't always work out that way :lol:. Although I didn't do it myself in that case, I made the decision and paid someone to do it, and I "made" my guitar better for me personally.
I've noticed several times that there's a sizable proportion of us who bemoan the fact that you can't seem to get the guitar you want "off the shelf" - the right neck profile with the wrong radius, for example. And so we start tinkering, getting replacement bits, etc. Once you've started tinkering, and creating your own thing, you're still likely to say "why can't I get one off-the-shelf?" but I'm not sure we'd be happy even if we could!! :lol:
Oh yeah, nearly forgot, boys v girls. I think it's just a matter of what aspect they focus on.
As far as I can make out, boys, in general, seem to like "tools" that do jobs (I mean the guitar or car or bike, etc, as well as the tools that you use to work on them), and that's what we get drawn to - we still like the jobs we're doing with the tools, but we seem to take pleasure in a good piece of kit at the same time as using it for the job.
Girls, on the other hand, again in general, although they appreciate a good tool for the job, once they've got it, seem to focus more on enjoying the job.
I'm gazing lovingly at a guitar at the moment, just cos it is a guitar, and it's mine, and I know what it does, how I set it up, and how to use it... and it's damn pretty :D, I'm also wondering if there's anything I could do to make it even better/prettier... but I'm not actually using it at the moment, I'm typing this... I think my missus, while she would do something like this sometimes, is far less likely to do it as much as I do. If she played, she'd be far more likely to use the guitar rather than just gaze at it and fiddle with it and type about it :lol:
Different example: we've both got quite nice fountain pens - I bought hers, her family bought mine. I do actually use mine a lot more than she does hers, but taking that aside, to me, my pen is a thing of beauty in its own right, to be lovingly serviced and cleaned, to be balanced in my hand, no-one else is allowed to write with it, etc, etc... to her, her pen looks nice, feels comfortable, and she uses it to write with as long as it works when she picks it up... to me it's a pen (sigh...), to her it's a pen.
We're not actually a lot different, we both value our pens, but if there was web forum on dicking about with pens, you'd be more likely to find me on it than you would her :lol:
