I wish I was one that could inspire you. Lord knows you've done a lifetimes worth of that for us Steve ....... and thanks for that my friend. Hans Brentrup use to hang out here. I'm not sure what became of him but he did some pretty cool purf lay ups.( not to mention a whole lot of other cool stuff) http://www.brentrup.com/page2/page2.html . I suspect he may have been feeling like yourself and did some very bold purfling lay ups that went into some very unique looking guitars. Only other thing I could suggest is, if you're feeling like you need to change it up, build a fiddle. No wait, how about a ba*#o. That should give you a whole new appreciation for the guitar.
Cheers,
Danny
) is "gradient" purfling... say, strips .010" thick of black fiber, Indian rosewood, walnut, mahogany, maple, white fiber. Or bois de rose, purpleheart, dark pink ivory, light pink ivory, maple. Or curly walnut, curly koa, curly movingui, curly maple. Optionally mirroring, like dark, medium, light, medium, dark. I think it could look pretty cool on certain guitars. May need some really high clamping pressure to minimize the glue lines though, especially between the lighter colored strips. And that means gluing before bending, which puts a limit on how wide you can make them. Although you could pre-glue just the lightest ones, then bend, then add on the darker strips during the whole binding/purfling glue-up on the guitar.