Nontheless, I've grown to like the thinner body and the rosewood fingerboard. The smaller scale is beginning to annoy.
PRS, eh? You sound like a connoisseur. Single coils?
No, my PRS has humbuckers. It has the same electronics they put in the Standard and Custom models; the only major difference is it has a bolt-on maple neck instead of a set mahogany neck. Also, no curly maple top (it does have a maple top, just not a curly one).
The Strat has single-coils, of course, as a proper Strat should have. :) Although I’m seriously considering upgrading them for either Texas Specials or Duncan Alnico II’s.
“I have a thing against expensive guitars — not the least of which is lack of discretionary capital. “
Street price on a new made-in-Mexico Strat these days is around $450-500. Quality varies, but the good ones play every bit as well as an American-made instrument, and the remaining flaws aren’t that hard to remedy. BTW, the bodies and necks on these are made in the States, and for the last few years they’ve been using alder bodies on the MIM Fenders (my Strat has a poplar body).