The only ones I ever had were the original Powerball heads. You could play them at home with no problems. As soon as you gave them some volume, the feedback made the amps unusable when trying to play in the context of a band. I think they added the Gate on the second version.
The Powerball...
If I were going to go that route, I would have to go with Warmoth. I have girl hands, and I would want the Wolfgang neck with its radius and nut width. I would put Anderson pickups in it though!
Anderson has always been cool and was quick to respond when I had a question about the pickup...
I'm happy with my Way Huge Conspiracy Theory. It gets the job done for me. I just use it for 2 things. It's great at adding some shimmer to a clean or it can be a nice overdrive/crunchy thing that sounds natural on top of a clean channel.
I've always loved the pickups. They're not for everyone though.
I played one of the guitars about 15 years ago. It's was really nice. I'm a Les Paul douchebag though.
To answer the question though: All guitars are too expensive, but the dollar is a lot weaker these days.
A Gibson Les Paul Custom in 2002 was between $2350 and $2500. Today, that should be $4225 to $4500. Gibson wants $5500 today.
PRS was kind of in the same ballpark as far as pricing back...
I never got to play any of the Vettas. I like tinkering around with all of that digital stuff. I've avoided the AxeFx stuff because I would get stuck in tweaking limbo. It's fun though!
Dino from Fear Factory used that setup after his Marshall was stolen back in the day. I always liked the SLO model on that first expensive Line 6 combo. Something about it just tickled me the right way. I had that Johnson Millennium 2x12 combo around '99. It had a few cool sounds in it...