My guitar came on Monday. I noticed that there was a serious problem with the head stock, there was a saw cut - like it had an accident with a table saw and nobody had the sense to pull it out of production (aka lack of quailty control). I called them up, I don't live too far from the warehouse. Yesterday I drove down to their "retail" store (in reality, an import shop that has the guitars all over the place).
These guitars have a veneer of black wood on the front and back. The replacement guitar had big cracks in the neck at the veneer with hairline cracks into the headstock. Worse than the guitar I was trying to replace.
I walked out with the Excel EXL-1DP, an upgrade - but they're all $800, a fine guitar with very nice inlays. And it sounds very nice too. It sounds amazing with the pickup.