One thing that seems nice for guitar players though is the nice looking stuff that is being made today. I looked at a Fender catalog and even the new squires look nice! I know the basses look good too. I don't know how acurate some of these are to a real vintage piece and obviously the vintage one will have "the" sound. I just know that if I were gigging on a crappy bar circuit I would hate to bring a real vintage beauty out there.
I used to fill in with a band from time to time and the guitar player was a collector and was pretty much playing most of that stuff when it was new in the early 60's. He owned a telecaster from the early 50's that was made the first WEEK that Fender started using the name telecaster. Eventually he stopped bringing it as the value of it was just too much to justify using it in some crappy bar.
Thank God that vintage drums are much more affordable. It makes me a lot more likely to bring a vintage set out from time to time.
