So much of it has to do with how guitars are designed and marketed. And of course the following they achieve. Alot of factors.
Take Fender for example. Telecaster = working man's tool, nothing fancy, just aimed at musicians who value sound over everything else. Jazzmaster = originally marketed at jazz players, didn't work, found a huge following when the early alternative musicians (Sonic Youth, J Mascis being the best examples) bought them cheap and used them to create new sounds. Mustang = student guitar, fairly low end, now highly sought after mainly after being popularized by Kurt Cobain (feel free to disagree).
A Warlock, of course, is aimed at another demographic altogether, and it fits in quite well. Don't see many jazz musicians strapping on a Warlock.
To me the most interesting ones are guitars like the Jazzmaster, Jaguar, Mustang, so on, the ones that were aimed at a certain group, and went on to find popularity elsewhere. Shows how great and versatile the instruments really are.
And good on the Iconoclasts (looking at you, Fran) who like to buck the trends and do something different. Look through my cd collection and what you will find more than anything is musicians who broke the mold and tried to do what they wanted, not giving a toss about how they were percieved.
But as Another Tool put it, it shouldn't matter, but sadly it does.
