I've had a poll on this site since I started it:

Which is the more important feature of a guitar; tone or playability?

So far, roughly 80% of voters sided with tone and that's also my answer as well. I can do more with a guitar with great tone and awkward neck or body than I can do with an easily playable guitar with awful tone.

However in the last couple of weeks, I've come closer than ever to saying playability is more important.

Well, I bought a cheap guitar off ebay and I've had more fun with it than I've had in a long time with other guitars. It's a Cort X11, very similar to Ibanez RG or Jem series guitar. So it features a thin, fast neck with a HSH pickup combination with coil-tapping facility. It's very similar to the guitar I still intend to build and that's why I bought it.

And since I received it, I've hardly played any other guitar. It puts a smile on my face as I'm going back to playing old Van Halen and similar tracks.

Then I plugged it into my main amp and I noticed it was somewhat lacking in tone. Let me clarify, it has masses of tone and a large range of tone. However It is more of a metal guitar with a different tone than I'm used to, I much prefer blues or rock guitars so it's taking some getting accustomed to on my side. I did find usable tones and I must say that has more to do with me not being used to the sound than it has to do with the guitar. Putting the guitar through the more metal signal chain of hi-gain amp worked a lot better. That's not what I bought it for and instead I want to be able to use it for more rock. So I spent some time changing the amp's settings and working with rolling off the volume and tone slightly on the guitar to remove some of the harshness. That worked out a lot better.

Other occasions

This also reminds me of two other circumstances that I've had the same experience:

• I was in a music shop playing an old Gretsch flat-wound jazz guitar. I've no idea what model I was playing, it was still dirty and hadn't yet been cleaned up ready for sale. But it was a lot of fun to play
• In another retailer, I was playing a Yamaha APX12 and was finding it great fun to play. I've played 12 string guitars before but this one just happened to work for me. I should have bought it, none of the rest have been as good.

So what did I learn?

Long-term usability and flexibility, then I'd choose tone.

Short-term fun, then I'd choose playability.