Of course,
a great musician playing mediocre gear, will overcome the drawback and project his true musicianship to the audience and CONVINCE them of his superiority, when compared to a mediocre musician with better gear....


BUT

Being myself a mediocre (or worse) player, I have discovered that I FEEL I sound better when playing better gear, and that makes me FEEL better.

I am sure a certain percentage of that good feeling, comes back to me and actually MAKES me better.

Works both ways.

As I have said before, I was bored of my gear and my playing before I joined Synthzone... the enthusiasm here, and the newly discovered knowledge of softsynths, made my gear play better, freshened it up, which in turn made me WANT to play and renewed my interest in mysic, eventually making me better player than I was.
Does that make sense?