I just hope they take someone on who reads discussion groups like this one and try to engage with their customer base. I'm a member of the UK Basschat (and a casual browser of Talkbass), it's a great thing when manufacturers chip in - Tech 21 regularly post to Basschat.
Thing is, until they actually listen to what people want, they're always going to fail eventually. I know full well they have a business to run, but do they honestly need to flood an already saturated market with thousands of rebooted Les Paul models year in, year out? Probably not. I might actually be a good thing if they ceased production for a couple of years...it worked in the 1960s.
Ultimately (and I use the collective 'we' here, despite not currently owning a Gibson in any guise), what do we, as bassists, actually want from Gibson, because I have a significant wedge of money just burning a hole in my pocket. In recent years, we've gone from a period where nobody wanted a Thunderbird to a point where every Tom, Dick and Harry is playing one (which was largely why I bailed and started buying Lulls). In my gigging years I've never played with anyone (either as support or headliner) that's used any other Gibson model; not a single EB or SG-Bass variant. Add to this that pretty much every bass other than their core range seems to have either been short lived or abject failure.
