Most of my guitars are US made fenders and I have a Gibson Les Paul standard
Earlier this year whilst waiting for my stuff to come back from Canada I bought a stop gap guitar
after a lot of searching and knowing exactly what I wanted I ended up with a Parker PM 20 – I can easily tell the difference between it and my others, its just not quite there
However for the difference in cost I would say that it really is an awesomely usable guitar and if this had been around when I was starting I would have been very happy with it for years
Plum
on the amp front I think the little line 6 has a lot going for it but my money would be going either to an adrenalinn III or a Tech 21 TM 30