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1) What do you find is a good string spacing? I know classical guitars are normally 2" but that seems hard to wrap a thumb around when necessary. Are there other nut measurements between 2" and 1 3/4"? Correct, classical guitars are all 2" wide. Fingerstyle players tend to prefer a 1 3/4" spacing at the nut, but there are some guitars that are tad wider. You can find some that are 1 7/8" and some with metric widths that are somewhere in between that the 1 3/4". The other most common width is 1 11/16". That is the typical dreadnought or jumbo guitar neck width. Great for the strummer playing bar chords or flatpicking. 2) What does action actually describe? Is it the measurement of space between the string and fret or a descriptive word of how it plays? This is typically measured by measuring the distance of the strings above the 12th fret. The closer the strings are to the top of the 12th fret, the better the action. This height is the primary adjustment made when you take your guitar in for a "setup". The saddle is adjusted, the neck truss rod is adjusted etc to set the height to a players preference. You can find more on this at my web sites FAQ pages. 3) Neck profile would be the curvature of the back of the neck? I had thought they were pretty standard among rounded necks. Actually that may seem to be the case, but it varies a lot based on the manufacturer. Also some vendors like Martin make guitars that are suppose to duplicate a vintage model. With that they duplicate the neck profile from that era. Quite different than today since back then they didn't have truss rods, so they made the necks much thicker. 4) I don't know what jumbo frets are. I assume they are longer length (making the neck longer?) I will look into it! These are frets that can a slightly higher crown above the fretboard. So they sit just a tad higher than regular frets and they tend to pinch off the string with a little less pressure.

Hard to say. Could be as simple as the strings on the Martin were dead and the string on the TAK were new. Martin's also are notorious for coming out of the factory with less then ideal action. Most always need to be set up after you first buy them. Tak's may have better setups on the showroom floor and therefore may play better when you first pick them up.

..or maybe you just felt better knowing the guitar wouldn't cost you and arm and a leg.