As I have gotten older, it seems my tastes in tone have changed and I find myself exploring between the brighter Taylor tone and the boomy Martin tone. My brand new GAD jumbo fits between them nicely, though we'll see how it ages. It has a little boom to it when strummed, but still sounds sweet up the neck when I finger pick. This is not to mention the comfort of the neck, a little bit of eye candy and a knockout price. I know I've only had it 24 hours, but my first impression would be to say Guild is doing it better in China than anyone else I see.
As for Martin and Taylor, I feel they are two companies whose names have been made by their success at totally opposite ends of the spectrum.
Martin may innovate in terms of materials like the HPL guitars, but their basic marketing effort is to promote their link with history. (The goofy painted cowboy guitars and the aluminum top guitar aside)... I have a model DM, my signature model as we call it here because we share the same initials. I have always said Martin made a marketing error when they made the Road Series sound as much like their high end guitars as they did. With DM in hand, I have no desire for a D28 or other Martin model. If you read their website descriptions of their guitars, there is an awful lot of verbage about how this guitar or that guitar relates to some guitar that was an icon in history.
Taylor, on the other hand, never wanted to sound like Martin and has made their name on technical innovation, ease of play and consistant build quality. In as closely as is possible, a Taylor guitar anywhere in the country will sound like the same model guitar somewhere else in the country. It's an imperfect science, but as close to consistancy as can be made, Taylor does it.
Admittedly, I am partial to Taylor guitars in many ways, though from having had 5, I am down to 1 that I will have until my tastes change too much more to imagine it ever happening. (It's a 2002 version of the 410ce, dread, cutaway, ovankol/spruce with Fishman blender) If I could build a perfect guitar, it would have a lot of Taylor specs to it like the 1-3/4" nut width, their neck profile and the satin finish on that neck. Alas, it's about tone and I am willing to compromise a bit for tone in things like a different profile or lacquered neck, as long as the neck isn't so small that I cramp up after only a little time playing.
Someone commented about Gibson quality going down and price going up... all too true. I participate at the Gibson Forum and as blindly passionate as some people over there are, even they admit their disappointment in what is coming out with the Gibson name on it. Nashville production seems more or less OK, but it's confined to electric guitars. Montana production is suspect much of the time on the acoustics and the Memphis plant is considered a joke by many Gibson loyals who feel it is a tourist attraction, less so a real factory.
One of the names we haven't mentioned, who I think is making really good acoustic guitars at fair prices, is Larrivee. It's pretty hard to knock a Larrivee acoustic and some of them are just ridiculously wonderful for very little money compared to their material and design counterparts in the other lines.