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Acoustic Guitar Mag repair expert Mamie Minch has an article in this months April issue about buying used guitars. I've sighted down the fretboard for years but never knew their was a word for doing that, Google 'foreshortening'.
I did a 3min eval yesterday of the AR805ce and knew right away I had a good one. When I sighted (foreshortening, always close one eye) down the fret board I saw the 'relief' was perfect.... but, the bridge was way out of wack. On an archtop the floating bridge is fully adjustable, the bass side screw had the bridge way too high and the treble side was almost as bad. Standard 3/32" low E at the 12th fret was like 1/3".
In the top part of my pic you can see how the dots on the frets foreshorten as you go down the fretboard, artist learn about this in class 101. Bottom part of pic is after I lowered the ebony bridge down to a tad under 3/32" of the bass side and 2/32" on the treble.
If you take along a straight edge, just lay in on the frets and see where it comes out in relation to the top of the bridge / bottom of the saddle. If the straight edge is well below the top of the bridge..... walk, or negotiate the price of a neck reset.
forshorten if you forget a straight edge like I did yesterday, takes some practice but once you get the hang it will come in handy. bert
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