I played in a band with a quite young guitarist. The amount of fuss he got from the crowd was unbelievable. It never got to me at all that he got more fuss, why should it? My problem was that he had a very limited set of tricks, was generally inaccurate and totally lazy about learning technique and point blank refused to learn any new songs, unless his dad (the drummer) bullied him into it. It was like going to the museum every gig.
I think why a guitarist gets the limelight is that they are playing some version of the melody of the song, that sticks out, at people.
I just think it's better that someone in the band gets attention than an audience ignoring them.