There's certainly no need to move to a premium brand like there once was to get a good playable instrument. A friend of mine was commenting the other day that an awful lot of up-and-coming, or even reasonably famous new bands were playing with their own non-premium instruments, and road-reliable but maybe not the most tonefull amps, where as a few years ago, they would have had endorsement deals with the major manufacturers and been touring with top flight kit. It's more a sign of the greatly reduced amount of money in the industry than anything else, but it also shows people that you don't have to use the premium brands if you don't want to.