「without」と「besides」の違いは何?

I wrote about throwing things out back in April:

http://upgradeenglish.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html

A couple of weeks ago, I was throwing more things out late at night. When I went to the garbage collection area in the basement, I found this guitar lying among some broken umbrellas and a disassembled set of shelves.

• disassemble 分解｛ぶんかい｝する、バラバラにする (definition from Eijiro on the Web)

× There seems to be nothing wrong with it, without the less-than-attractive green stain it has.
◯ There seems to be nothing wrong with it, [other than/except for/besides] the less-than-attractive green stain it has.

Use "without" when you want to say that something that usually is included is missing. When you mean 以外, use "other than", "except for", or "besides".

• without ならでは, 無し, なし, 亡しで, なしで, 亡しに, なしに (definition from jmdict)
• except 除いて, ならでは, 措いて (definition from jmdict)
• 以外 with the exception of, excepting, except for (definition from jmdict)

I don't really play guitar these days, so I'm not sure what to do with it.

× I could easily live except for it.
◯ I could easily live without it.

I'm trying to get rid of things, but as a musician, I just couldn't leave a perfectly good instrument sitting in the trash.  Maybe I should give it away.