I'm a bit confused about your post. Hendrix doesn't need a good instrument but Menhuin or Bell does? Are you saying that Hendrix is not as relatively technically skilled with his instrument as a classical player? Or that there is a fundamental difference in the type of music that does not require a good instrument?
A cliche every guitar-player loves to spout is "tone is in the fingers, not gear". A good guitarist will sound 5x better playing on cheap gear than a mediocre player on expensive gear. That doesn't however mean a cheap guitar will let a great guitarist express all his ideas well. When Jimi went from playing back-up on all those R&B records to playing a new sound, his equipment changed too. So gear did matter.
Similar with photographers. People who see a beautiful photo and say "Wow, that's amazing, you must have a fantastic camera!" - huh. "Do you see an amazing painting and say 'wow, you must have a fantastic brush'?".
Actually he got his first Strat only in 1966. But that doesn't mean much - he was playing Jaguars and Jazzmasters before, which weren't shoddy.
But to an electric guitar player, the amps and effects are as much part of the gear as the guitar itself. His "rock gear" really came together in 1966-67.
Yes, I'm still confused as well. By the phrasing, it sounds like HenryTheHorse is saying Yehudi Menhuin and Joshua Bell are different than Jim Hendrix (Menhuin and Bell are better?), but that seems to go against the first sentences.
Hendrix's music is not even nearly as technical and perfectionist as classical music. The former was not a perfect instrumentalist, but his overall singing, composition and style made him the figure he is, whereas the latter is valued on a mostly technical basis.
