that 'hey, man! lookit my gear!' thing turns me off, too.
i have an epi les paul 'elitist'. i think gibson finally got that they had made a mistake marketing all the elitist instruments, and they quit. i also had a 3 dot 65 elitist that i sold...and i wish i had not, as it was a much more reliable instrument than this les paul is (tuning from time to time).
i'm a cheap guy...i'm not going to pay thousands more for an instrument with a 'name' on it, when the 'lesser name' instrument plays as nice. since i am not on stage, and i'm not sponsored, what would be the point? i like cheap guitars, anyway.
one of these days, if squier don't quit with their pretty high quality, fender is going to stop selling squiers, too. some 'metrics report' is going to come in, and that will be it.