All instruments are equal, but some instruments are more equal than others

[Monsieur Croche]

Worldwide, plucked string instruments have had far more impact than struck string instruments.

An instrument well under 20 lbs weight, the space it takes up and portability-- pitted against the practicality of a mechanism of hundreds of lbs. and the square footage its footprint devours... no wonder. 

That does not mean what has been made for the guitar has had more influence on western classical music, that world round factor including a lot of indigenous folk and non-western classical, no less legitimate, but affecting western music nary a jot (until some 20th century composers began dipping into that non-western pool for resources and inspiration.)

If I recall properly, every 'western' acoustic instrument we have -- other than those instruments with keyboards -- has its prototypical ancestor's origin in the antiquity of the far east.