Demand

Last Friday, I was at Swee Lee's warehouse checking out the goodies prior to the sale day (which I didn't go... nothing to get this time), so there were two rather senior members of the guitar-playing community who were interested in the wonderful (Fender) Lite Ash Strat. After a detailed inspection, it was discovered that the guitar's neck had warped & caused some buzzing at the upper frets. One of them demanded the sales people bring him an allen wrench to tweak the truss rod back into place. Thereafter, according to him, the situation would provide a conclusive assessment of the buzzing, if it persisted, the guitar would be deemed dysfunctional & beyond saving.

Was the back-bowed neck the conclusive culprit?

The back-bowed neck might be the chief suspect but it's not an exclusive fault. I couldn't understand why straightening it would be the cure for the buzzing. If it was hoped that this procedure would raise the action to cure the buzzing then it's the wrong thing to do- straightening the neck would only lower the action & might cause more buzzing to occur subsequently. 

Buzzing even when the neck is straight- so the guitar is beyond saving?

Of course not. There are other causes of fret buzzing. Two other possibilities here would be a low action or an unleveled fret (which includes the improper insertion into the fret slots- the reason why it's not leveled). 

Should we be telling others how things could be fixed even before taking ownership of the things? Hmm...