Agreed; my go-to guitar is a thoroughly beaten-up Telecaster that's had most of the guts ripped out of it, and one of my basses is an £80-from-EBay plywood Squier Jazz from sometime in the 1990's, cruddy pickups, electrics et al. It sounds cool, plays nicely and I like it a lot.
+1 for learning to set instruments up yourself - this can transform the sound and feel of a very average bass (or guitar).