This is me playing a santa cruz (not the fake santa cruz more like the SCGC variety) guitar that I bought in 2002. It costed me USD4000 back then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtNmsPeULeY&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSljHwi2B7s&feature=plcp

IMHO playing the acoustic for more than 10 years, you don't have to spend a whole lot of money to get a good acoustic these days. The technology in making good mass produced acoustic guitars have leapt forward tremendous in the last 7 years.

On the Martin-Taylor spectrum its more like Martin, just better made and more delicately tuned. I like Taylor's playability, but I prefer a dry woody tone than the modern Taylor "sound". I don't play amplified guitars, either.

If you're a stage performer who plugs in Taylor would be a good choice, but I'd go for Takamines instead. They are made tough enough even for the roads. Taylors are a bit too precious for that sort of stuff.

Be careful of Malaysia's humidity. The more expensive the guitar (i.e. made with individually tone-tapped, thin solid wood tops), the more sensitive the tone is to humidity. You can get pretty crap sounds if the guitar is not kept dry-ish.

Cheaper still, use rice as they absorb moisture fairly well.

Turning the air-con helps a lot... on cooling cycles, they act as dehumidifiers.

I never thought about the worm, haha! Sometimes I can't be bothered gonig out to buy things and just use whatever is lying around

On the other hand, I don't think there will be enough silica to dry guitars in our 80+ RH%.