I live in europe and owned and tried many gibsons. About the setup I don't really care in the sense that I do my own anyway but I am weary if a guitar is set up high-ish. I take it as an effort to hide fret problems, small but problems.
Bottom line: Inconsistent fret jobs, from great to unbelievable (custom shop slash. amazing guitar) to unacceptable (lp classic) to frets that felt scratchy.
For some reason, I've never encountered one with a weird bow (up or down) and that is a good thing but if you pay that amount of cash for a guitar you expect decent to great fretwork and 5/10 out of those guitars didn't meet that.
It's weird but many cheaper guitars had better fretwork and that was hard to admit. I've always thought that gibsons were maybe affected by the travel and climate changes from USA to europe and had frets that popped up etc.
Their sound is a personal preference although one or two were dogs. Some were fantastic. Most were true to their name. Some woods are not meant to be guitars and those were there...Gibsons are indeed factory made instruments, I doubt that they choose their woods judging acoustic properties, only visual to their higher grade instruments. So again you have to choose.
Also, binding that was horribly fit, paint problems etc should not be there for guitars that cost so much and have the made in USA stamp.Tuning stability. There were some instances on those I've played also.
Statistically I must say that half of what I've played through the years pass as very good though not great or well made instruments for the price. I'd expect a higher percentage.
Still if you value certain things that make a gibson a gibson what it is there is no real, so readily made alternative.
For me it'd be details like nitro finish, 17 degrees pitch on the headstock, fret over binding, stuff like that. Quartersawn mahogany necks also. And of course the shape. I can't get along with many alternative lp shapes at all, visually.
