We've had 2 rehearsauditions for guitar players recently...
1st one said he knew nothing about theory but had put quite a lot of practice into working out our songs. He was, however, a bit plodding and standard-metal with very little invention, spark or syncopation though timing was generally good.
2nd guy was far more interesting musically, understood what modes were and could play around with our songs. He started off playing a little too blues-ily (as our original guitar player did on the album) but varied from that when told he had free reign. His only negative was that he's very slow to respond to messages on't phone...
So I was keen on 2, the rest of the band wanted 1 as "he was heavier". I said "heavy is easy, interesting isn't, what sort of band do we want to be - same old same old or an interesting mix of all-sorts?"). As a result it looks like we may now have a 2 bass 2 guitar band!
I'm very tempted to show 'em Chick Corea's advice to musos, though as they all hate anything to do with jazz, often including musicianship, it may well fall on deaf ears!