Any experiences with MIDI guitar controllers?

I’m wondering if anyone here has ever bought or used a full MIDI controller that looks sort of like a guitar – you know, with the buttons on the neck and the short wires on the body. As opposed to installing a MIDI pickup on a standard instrument. If you tried the latter, how were the results? Did you have to get it professionally installed? How was the tracking?

(FWIW, I used to have a guitar synth back in days of yore, which took a standard analog guitar output and turnnnnsqeeeeee fzzzzzzz woooooooooooooooo! splurchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh vzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz