Thing is Schecter is famous for being the bang-for-buck brand, and they do know that, so they tried, with the economy kicking prices higher and higher, to keep things fancy with a still acceptable price. But it's not easy task, more and more brands started building import lines in the same facilities LTD and Schecter used, which caused prices to rise up again (and move the whole thing to Indonesia to keep costs down) and QC to go down the drain. I can understand them, it's not an easy market anymore now that even youtubers have their brand; and yeah, while in the past LTD have been a so and so brand (excluding their beginning, when a ~400 series was an outstanding guitar no question), in most recent years they started kicking all kind of arses, maybe not quality wise but features and look wise, which is basically the reason why an ESP/LTD is what 95% of metal players use on stage.
Schecter tried to keep up, but their philosophy of "put some flashy binding here and a figured veneer there, it'll look pricier" is not really what guitar players seek (maybe excluding beginners).
With that said, their Fujigen lineup might be a game changer, if they accept to make some metal machine looking models.
