Guitar virtuosos

Up until I was eighteen, I wasn't really interested in the virtuosity of lead guitarists, only of vocalists, until I observed the guitar skills of Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin in their music movie "The song remains the same" then I began buying electric guitars trying to master lead guitar.
Before all this, I was aware of great guitarists of our modern era from jazz, rock n roll and rock and so forth such as Chuck Berry, Hank Marvin, George Benson, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana etc etc, but I preferred listening mostly to vocal based music. Now as a lead guitar enthusiast, I still think that the human voice is the most dynamic component in music when it is given the right melody, lyrics and instrumentation. One of my most favourite vocal songs is "Horse with no name" by the band America, I can listen to that song again and again, and never get sick of it, such an amazing piece of music in my opinion, awesome melody, awesome guitar work and instrumentations, awesome vocal skills from awesome personalities like Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley. Cool as lyrics as well, its not about romance between male n female, or sex, or drugs or getting drunk, its like a captain's log type of song, a lonely observance of our crazy world I would think. I was only about 5yrs old when that song came out in 1972, I'd come home back from school in those days and hear it playing on the radio(N.Z. local radio that is).
But getting back to lead guitar, I had the opportunity watching Jimmy Page demonstrating his guitar skills on the movie "The song remains the same" which really impressed me, especially his blues, contemporary and Celtic/English folk guitar techniques, even a violin stick to his electric guitar, such a talented guy, so I became addicted in trying to master lead guitar through Page, then also Jimi Hendrix, Hank Marvin, George Benson, Mark Knophler, Carlos Santana, Gary Moore and many others, also Eddie Van Halen through to Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. They all have their own unique qualities and feels which I relate to our moods and enviromental settings. Plus, most of these guitarists I've mentioned have composed guitar based instrumentals especially Joe Satriani, most of his music compositions are guitar instrumentals.
I particularly like Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani because some of their guitaring sounds very sci-fi and futuristic especially when they use all those digital effects and guitar techniques. I love futuristic concepts.
Joe Satriani was a guitar music teacher before he took to the stage. One of his methods of teaching guitar is learning every note on the fretboard of the guitar, not a teacher for daytrippers n dreamers I would think. I've seen Joe Satriani demonstrate his knowledge of lead guitar and all these advanced weird chords that sound really awesome, such a talented guy. There is a style of rock lead guitar called shredding which is basically picking really fast, which I've also seen in rock n roll, jazz, country and other styles, but like in all styles of guitar music, its not about how fast you can play, but how well you can compose music to make these guitar techniques fit in, to create a masterpiece. Theres a lot of people who can pick really fast on a guitar, usually called guitar scale exercises, but they don't know how to compose music/songs using this fast guitar technique.
I can appreciate all styles of music from opera to contemporary music, but for me it depends on the melody, instrumentation/vocals and/or lyrics...