Any Pleas For Modern Construction Methods?

I’m going to go ahead and guess that the folks who make guitars using these more modern methods, which have been more or less maligned here over the last week, are not doing so willy-nilly. Perhaps some are following a trend, but I’d guess that most of these luthiers have reasons that they consider convincing enough that they devote their lives to making guitars in this way, and I’d really like to hear from them, as well.

I hope it’s not naive of me to ask that we keep this civil and respectful – after all, I think we can all learn something if we invite this group of luthiers into the fold and find out why they think these methods are better than the traditional ones (and keep in mind, of course, that tradition is almost always relative). I haven’t played or heard enough of these more modern guitars to have an opinion myself, but I tend to believe that there is always room for progress, which is not to say that all attempts at progress are successful. But experimentation is what leads to progress, and perhaps we’re in a period where folks are seeing if a better guitar can be made, and I wouldn’t want to discourage that.