Originally Posted by: chucklivesoninmyheartAnd to counter SPL's claim...[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=SPL]99% of the time you're not going to have your favorite pickups in the guitar you buy. Even relatively high quality guitars usually come with crappy or sub-par quality pickups.

Did my claim even need countering? I didn't even make one absolute statement. All I meant is that pickups shouldn't be the deciding factor when buying a guitar, unless you have a lot of money to spend.

Just because the few brands you mentioned DO come with high quality pickups in their higher end models (read: expensive) doesn't mean that my claim is any less true.

If you misinterpreted what I meant by stock pickups, all I meant were pickups made by Jackson, Ibanez, Duncan Designed,... the ones that usually come in most guitars made in Korea or Japan...