I know developing one's sound is critical, expecially for the application for which it is intended. I hope to design with Alembic the ultimate bass that has that fat Fender tone of yore, without losing the Alembic sound (yes I am plotting). I can live with going to a real Ric for that Chris Squire awesome tone, and I certainly have enough of those laying around (but never too many despite my wife's protestations, btw).
Oh, so many choices, so little time, need more time to play them all even if I only owned one instrument. The horror, the horror! (bonus points for the first person to identify which pudgy actor recited those lines, and the movie, and yes I am balding and pudgy myself)!