Eastman stops using Nitro switches to Truetone

[pszy22]

If I ever sell it, I don't expect the average buyer to know or care to ask

I agree with your statement assuming you plan to sell a 200 or 300 dollar guitar.  That's what average guitar players buy - epiphones, yamahas, recording kings, etc.

Most guitar players I know, are interested in what exactly they are paying for once they start to pony up 1200/1500/2000... dollars.

Rightly or wrongly, alot of folks tend to associate a nitro finish with a higher quality (more costly) guitar.  The lack of transparency regarding the change is puzzling, if it is an upgrade, why wasn't it announced and marketed?  Even now answers range from sometime in December or maybe it was June, but you can't really tell anyways since the serial numbers are totally random so who knows when your guitar was built.

Eastman certainly builds some good instruments, but they have an uphill battle to convince folks to spend serious money on a guitar built offshore.  They certainly aren't making life easier for themselves by the way they handle the free flow of information.