

Not having to deal with removing all the quick connect stuff, in retrospect, was definitely a plus. I replaced the pickups on the 02, I wasn't a fan of the early BurstBucker pickups. I have two LP standards one is a 1995 that I bought new in August of 95, the other a 2002 that I picked up on a trade for a Custom Shop 57 Time Machine strat. Much easier to deal with if you have problems you're trying to solve and there's just something about the PCB board in there that just makes m go, "Why?" I know there's probably good reason for it, but my guess is it's down to time spent soldering on the production floor If you're referring to the PCB boards that are in the more recent ones? While I don't know off hand the year they started with the quick connect setup, I also prefer the "older" setup too.

Those were some radical changes that left a lot of people scratching their heads. I guess I would say this, that it wasn't until you get in to the HP series (2017) that you can start to really put a good debate together on those, vs. I don't think 2006 was a year of anything notable to draw a pros/cons comparison, but I'm not the expert on Les Paul minutia.
