I came across this article which has a few paragraphs that ring true for any artist:

When it comes to the arts, be it music, photography, surfing or anything, there is a mountain to be overcome. What happens is that for the first 20 years or so that you study any art you just know that if you had a better instrument, camera or surfboard that you would be just as good as the pros. You waste a lot of time worrying about your equipment and trying to afford better. After that first 20 years you finally get as good as all the other world-renowned artists, and one day when someone comes up to you asking for advice you have an epiphany where you realize that it's never been the equipment at all.

You finally realize that the right gear you've spent so much time accumulating just makes it easier to get your sound or your look or your moves, but that you could get them, albeit with a little more effort, on the same garbage with which you started. You realize the most important thing for the gear to do is just get out of your way. You then also realize that if you had spent all the time you wasted worrying about acquiring better gear woodshedding, making photos or catching more rides that you would have gotten where you wanted to be much sooner.

Amen. These words can't be more true. Some of the best music I've recorded over the years happened before I purchased my Yamaha digital hard-disk recording workstation, before I bought an abundance of microphones, before I stopped using my junky Fender guitar, and before I got my Line 6 POD. I've never been able to replicate the great sound on some of those recordings.

I've always hesitated to buy a new drumset because of this. I have an old junky 5-piece Ludwig drumset (at least I think it's a Ludwig). I don't think the shells are of any of the standard wood types that are used today in modern sets (mahogany, birch, or maple). It's some weird wood composite/laminate. But I really don't think that a new drumset will make me sound any better on tape/disk.

Now, I'm not saying that buying nice gear is foolish. That's not the point of the article either. The point is that a powerful piece of work is created from what's in your head, not your materials. John Bonham played on that damn transparent-acrylic Ludwig kit with Led Zeppelin, and his sound owns. But anyway... buying gear can make you happy, and can help you achieve a specific quality of your art that you're going for, but it can't replace your creativity and artistic genius.

Another good paragraph from the article:

I met Phil Collins at a screening in December 2003. It came out that people always recognize his sound when they hear it. Some folks decided to play his drums when he walked away during a session, and guess what? It didn't sound like him. Likewise, on a hired kit (or "rented drum set" as we say in the USA) Phil still sounds like Phil. So do you still think it's his drums that give him his sound?