I think this is probably mostly marketing driven to get us to buy more guitars.. despite having owned a guitar marketed as a blues acoustic.
Blues is such a big tent and it seems there has been someone successful in it with just about every type of guitar and/or other instruments.
Maybe small acoustics are better than big ones or something but I went from a small Alvarez "Blues Acoustic" to a small Taylor which is supposedly bright and it doesn't really matter at all for playing blues. I don't own a Dread or big acoustic but it's hard for me to believe that big booming bass wouldn't sound good for pounding out blues rhythms. If you're doing a little palm muting that big acoustic is going to get you more powerful volume on the low bass parts of the rhythm parts.
Seems like it's more in your fingers and attitude.
One of the things I hear a lot in my lessons, I've been getting a lot of blues instruction has to do with with note selection and "playing loose", sometimes including some extra strings, not necessarily playing stuff exactly the same every time through, etc.. I think that is a bigger factor than the guitar.
On electric muting notes produces some interesting results, maybe acoustics that people think are good for blues do a better job of producing some choppy partially muted sounds.
I don't think there is anything you can really point to on the electric side either.. just about any guitar through just about any amp and with a pretty wide range of effects can work. Though I can't really believe I'd enjoy hearing/playing blues with a heavy delay type sound.
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