Awesome, John. Yeah, I listen to a pretty wide range of genres, that's for sure. I have to admit that it's pretty rare that I find a CM artist that I really like, but Demon Hunter is absolutely amazing; one of my favorite bands. What I find hilarious about them is Demon Hunter isn't even Ryan Clark's main gig...he's a graphic artist for other artists. Lol.
I did grow up on CM though so I'm pretty familiar with it all.
Unfortunately, my classical guitar training was cut pretty short and I didn't focus on it near as much as I wish I would have. I enjoyed it when I actually practiced, but in college I tended to be too focused on recording my own music or (more seriously) programming the next big thing (TM) to do anything really productive. Lol, funny how that worked out, just took a while. These days I crave time alone to play guitar; that's hard to find because the kids are either with me, or asleep. I can only play the Dora theme song so many times... ;)
So I guess I never really switched, per se. I've also never really been a good lead guitarist, though I'm slowly getting there these days. I'd call myself a sufficient metal rhythm player, but hardly lead.