As a fan of the guitar I sometimes wonder at the lack of adoption of new technology amongst players. Okay, so we have guitars made from exotic materials like carbon fibre and you can get digital modelling amplifiers that can sound like anything ever made, but a lot of people use gear that could have been made sixty years ago. I guess innovators like Les Paul and Leo Fender got things pretty good right from the start. I speak as someone who has a valve/tube amplifier and guitars that are classic designs, although my Telecaster has innovative noiseless pickups from Kinman and I have some digital effects.
Something that has been tried at various times is guitars where you can change the pickups. I just saw this story on I Heart Guitar about a guitar designed by Wild Customs in collaboration with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top that has a pickup module that rotates to expose different units, so you can change between a single coil and a humbucker in a flash. It is a mechanical system that must have some neat engineering to connect things up properly. This is a demo of their standard model. This is neat, but the Billy Gibbons model costs $9999 and the two pickup version $16000. You could buy a lot of guitars for that. I am not sure how often I would want to change pickup sound within a song.
Of course there have been ways to change the sounds for ages. Many humbuckers can be split by a switch to emulate single coils, but it might not be quite the same due to their construction. The Seymour Duncan P-Rails has two different types of pickups in one module that you can use separately or together.
Ampeg had a model years ago where you can swap the pickup without removing the strings, but it would take a minute or two.
I was long fascinated by the Line 6 Variax guitars that have no visible pickups, but emulate various types of guitar. I think my friend @stav still has one. Purists will not accept modelling though even if most people will not hear the difference.
Personally I am open to using whatever technology does the job, but then I am only really playing music for fun. I am sure some session musicians might have a use for something like the Wild Customs guitar if they cannot take many instruments with them. Others care more about the looks and will want something like a Gibson Les Paul as it suits their image.
I could happily have more guitars, but I will go for what inspires me to play. That could be a classic design or I would go for something more radical if it is usable and affordable. Despite all the innovation the classic designs are probably still the biggest sellers by far. Lots of alternatives just did not last long. It seems a little like us driving 1950s cars when we can have something more efficient with all sorts of gadgets. Both will get you to your destination and maybe the driving experience feels better in the old one for some people.
What is your favourite innovation in guitar technology?