Taylor's have definitely lost something since they went to the ES. I have a taylor 714-ce and I really enjoy the guitar. The ES however is far from natural sounding. If you know what you're doing you can eq it into a decent sound, but it is still nothing like it sounds unplugged. I haven't had to deal with Taylor for customer service because I haven't had any problems, but I am thinking at some point about getting something else put in. For the record. This specific guitar was found after a good sized search in which I play many of the same models at many different stores.