I agree it's a waste of resources and landfill space. If they were looking for a tax write-off that could have been accomplished by donating them to schools or charities.
It reminds me of a PRS video from a while back. After many years as CEO Paul went down to the shop floor and made a guitar to prove he still had his chops. The QC department rejected it and the video showed the guitar being cut into pieces. What they were trying to say is that PRS quality standards are so high it doesn't matter who the builder is - if it doesn't pass QC it doesn't go into the wild. I know that was one guitar and not thousands, a band-saw and not heavy equipment, but the underlying principle may be the same.
Most people/players really hated that Gibson guitar/robot tuners/etc. and it was held up as the epitome of Henry's failure, so doing this in such a grand style is, perhaps, the new managements message that they hated it too.
My impression is that this is a PR shock-and-awe stunt meant to attract attention (which it's doing in grand style). In the PR biz the saying goes "no news is bad news" so the mere fact that it's gotten eyeballs and peeps talking about it means that it is successful. People forget details over time but remember the brand.
The more attention you give it the more you're feeding Gibson's PR machine.
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