The player determines how well the shaft plays….. and the cue maker builds what you ask for. The question becomes how good is the wood quality. The best names in cue making usually produced the best shafts but in actuality, even a brand new cue maker can produce equivalent shafts.
If you can’t specify to the cue maker what you want the shaft to be, not how he/she builds it, then you are just flipping a coin you’d like how the shaft turns out.
Take the time to find out what you prefer in a shaft’s weight, taper, ferrule material and tip type and communicate with the cue builder so he has a better chance of delivering what pleases you.
When you don’t, then the outcome is really just a coin flip.