Well I'm going to comment on both opinions. I've had my same main amp for about 4 years now and have written many a songs through it. I've had about a dozen pedals for about 5 years and have recently gotten a few more. I can say that I have gotten inspiration from both just pure creativity AND from sound. Perfect example, when I got my bluesky, I instantly had a cool idea for a song and worked on it for a week and now I'm incredibly happy with where it went, case in point, Mayer writing "In Repair" with the POG.

I also just finished up a song that I've had 90% done until one day I realized how I wanted to write my bridge lyrically and it changed the mood of the song and I instantly knew how I wanted the intro and outro to go and I am now completely happy with how that turned out, no tonal inspiration but life experience inspiration.

It's naive to tell people where their creativity will come from because everyone's different. Mayer and Bonamassa chase tone ALL the time and that's what inspires them. Mayer takes freaking 40+ guitars on the road with him which is borderline stupid but I bet each guitar inspires him to perform and play in a certain manner, or he just loves his guitars.

So my point? Yes people really shouldn't chase the tone thing so much, I've stuck with my tone for the last four years and it hasn't stopped me from writing, but when I do get new sounds from pedals and such it inspires me in other ways too. This board does go in circles about Mayer's tone and the answers always been the same. If I win the lottery I'm going to buy Mayer's setup as closely as I can and post an hours worth of clips for everyone.

I've accepted that I can't get Mayers tone and I've never gone farther than buying a fender to attempt achieving it but that doesn't mean I still don't enjoy discussing it. Another thing, when people post original ideas or new songs on this board, they get blown over or it turns into a mess of insults. There's lots of things on this forum I'd love to discuss but there's just not enough members with the interest to have the thread not drop within a day.

Brandon