Of all the major guit manufactures like Fender, Gibby, PRS, Martin, Taylor, I feel it is the
mothership's own attention to its non-US mfg materials and workmanship that makes
all the difference: not so much origin, but how much energy the
home-front wants to pay abroad.
As personal, anecdotal, opinions go, the MIM Fenders are ok ...owned several in the past and still own two today; not bad, but not superlative guits. Same with Epiphone ...nice, but just ok. Sigmas ...meh. PRS SEs are seriously nice, IMHO: it seems like Paul pays really close attention to these as if he has frequent-flier miles to Korea
Which brings me to Taylor: Bob has repeatedly stated in print that he is hands-on in Mexico and goes there often. Call it good management, call it convenience/proximity to ElCajon, call it smart, whatever; but IMHO it makes a big difference when the main dude shows up often to keep his fingers in the mix. All this to say that I personally feel Taylor's MIM guitars suffer no drawbacks that I can tell, at least not that I have ever felt nor heard. That's a big deal for me. I
cannot say the same for the aforementioned makers, with the best of them being PRS for me. Just my observations/ownership over these many years, mind you, so take with heaping grains of sodium chloride
Edward