This.
As a naive teen, I was convinced by a (rather manipulative, in hindsight) salesperson to "upgrade" my "mediocre" mid-level Martin (which may have been a partly laminate build but I didn't know the specs back then) with my leftover scholarship money for a boutique acoustic that was supposedly better than any vintage or modern Martin. I'm assuming at that price (probably close to $3500) that it was all solid wood but it was basically a guitar-shaped piece of furniture. The worst, most uninspiring guitar I have ever played. Tried hard to work with it (especially since the shop's 14-day return policy suddenly didn't exist when I brought it back 4 days after I bought it, citing my concerns) but when I finally traded it in years later, it sat in a store for well over a year. Yep, everybody knew it was a POS.
I seem to recall in an interview where one of Bill Collings' first guitars was a Gibson Dove that he absolutely hated and later got a laminate Guild that he thought sounded way better. I don't have the link (so don't quote me on that) and to each their own, but I reckon Bill knew a thing or two about acoustic guitars. Ditto for Bert Jansch.
I definitely love my all-solid acoustic guitars at home but the all-laminate Gibson J-160E has a unique thing going for it (though it's admittedly not to everyone's taste) and the Lâg and Guild acoustics I mentioned impressed me enough that I still think about buying one of them to this day.
