interesting and correct thread. yessum.
To me, the most important things that define a guitar's sound are the bridge and the pickups. A ToM bridge is going to pass more resonance to the body in that continuous circle than a jag bridge is, which is why a les paul or jennysonic is more likely to be a more resonant guitar than a stock jazzmaster.
But wood obviously does matter, though it's fairly minor, all you have to do is play say a cheap strat against a top of the line strat. The more expensive one will be made of higher quality wood which will more than likely resonate more, which is what makes it a "better" guitar. Which makes for more fun playing, probably, but in a realistic situation you wouldn't hear the difference - it's purely in feel. That's why people like Eric Johnson are so anal about these things - they like the feel of a resonant guitar, even if its effect on the sound is pretty minimal (though obviously you get some guitars that for unexplained reasons sound and play fantastic and others that are a bit crap that are all the same model. I guess it's because no 2 pieces of wood are identical so hence they'll resonate differently.
so yeah, fancy ass tone talk is only partly true, there's a load of factors that are a lot more important in how your guitar will sound or play.
