hedrix, simply for his creativity, just blows me away listening to stuff that he came up with on the spot. Page, the guy is simply brilliant, no other way to put it. there are others of course, santana deserves to ge mentioned. right now I'm really into mark knopfler, just an unbelievable blend of skill and style. van halen had amazing techincal ability, but if it came down to it, I'd have to put page and knopfler at the top, followed very closely by hendrix, then van halen, then a ton of other people, including santana, jerry garcia, clapton, too many others to list here.