I have the luxury of liking the tone of my current crossover, which allows me to be extremely patient. Sure it's wood, and I need to feed it water all summer long, can't leave it in a car, and must avoid performing in direct sunlight (which is tough because about 1/2 of my playing is outside), but I do okay if I'm careful. Having said that, I'm really looking forward to carboning up.
On the topic of patience, I study trends in crossover, classical, and composite guitar development. For example, there was some sort of macho thing going on with classical scale lengths, up to 660mm. Bigger is better, right? Now, calmer heads are prevailing. Lots of people are realizing that a properly voiced 640mm classical does not sacrifice any tone, and is a lot more comfortable for some people.
With Emerald, I watched the next generation X20, how Alistair included everything he had learned up to that point, and just made it to be exactly what he wanted it to be. It was such a success, production of the X5, X10, and X30 was suspended. For nylon, the X10 is probably the best size, because it is closest to the traditional size of a classical, but it hasn't received the full treatment that the X20 received for its next generation. I'm inclined to wait.
While I have never designed or built a guitar, I can imagine the process. So if the design goal is to specify scale length, string tension, and bridge placement, then build a guitar around those specs, I imagine that body volume, soundboard stiffness, bracing pattern, bracing stiffness, and sound hole diameter can all be optimized to produce a desirable voice. So if the goal is to build a guitar around a 640mm scale, hard tension nylon strings, and a bridge in the center of the lower bout, this is quite different from adapting a guitar that was originally built for a 650mm scale, medium tension steel strings, and a 14 fret bridge position.
Right now, we are looking at adaptations that can produce fine ergonomics, but haven't yet reached tonal parity with classical guitars. I think a crossover, designed from the beginning to be a crossover, would be amazing. I'm patient.
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