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Geez, there's a lot I could post in this thread, but in a very short synopsis, here are my opinions ...
Guitar techs and luthiers are humans. To err is human and we all practice our humanity on a daily basis, don't we? This is not an excuse for when boo-boo's occur, it's an explanation that they certainly could occur, as super careful as we try to be ... it's just a fact of humanity. Unless the tech has fostered a bad track record ... that's a completely different story.
If you do "guitar work" for a living, you ain't gonna be livin' high and well unless yer a tech for Eric or Carlos or Buddy or Larry or stick-a-well-off-guitarist's-name-here ... or unless you charge a small highly inflated fortune for your work. So, to pay the bills and stick the key in the shop door, you charge fair rates and get swamped with work that forces customers to wait, and depending on the tech's work load that can be dayze or weeks - or longer. It'd be nice to schedule setup appointments, like a doctor, but too often that's not practical when yer customer is hundreds or thousands of miles away. And yer current workload is off-the-wall and yer "work load window" varies on a daily basis, for sundry reasons. As long as you let your customer understand your current work times, as best you know, that's guitar tech life in the fast lane.
What a tech actually does with your guitar (for a "setup") is another thing, and that can vary a whole bunch based on a huge buncha criteria. If properly approached, the spectrum of work parameters are unique and enormous, as no two guitarists and guitars are the same, and it would take a tome to write about.
All guitarists should understand their instruments and learn to perform their own basic guitar setups. It's not rocket science. Start with Dan Erlewine's guitar repair book - everything you need to know is there, and very well explained. I've coached perhaps hundreds of guitarists to accomplishing their own setup work.
Cutting a nut is not part of a basic setup, and really does require proper tools in order to accomplish the work correctly. It's not a difficult job, once you understand a good process, and you use the proper round edged gauged nut files - and not some jury-rigged saw blade or v-file or other such inferior stuff. The bottom of a nut slot should be rounded - not flat, and not a "V" shape. Buy the proper guaged nut files - you won't need that many, you'll use them more often than you think, and they'll last a lifetime - geez, we spend hundreds if not thousands on our guitars, what's another $50 to $100 on something you'll use forever? I just don't understand the huge urge to save a few bucks on nutfiles - yer just making more work and trouble for yerself AND your guitars. YMMV.
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