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interesting. A big thick neck is more comfortable for me, but I also wonder if the player who gravitates towards shredder necks tends to have techniques/practice regimens that would lead to an RSI.
This is big. Some people take longer than others. For me, I don't know what I will like tomorrow.
I kinda have to ride it out with a guitar I feel I'm not vibing with for long enough to make sure I actually don't like it. I didn't vibe with my Ibby AZ for months, until one day for some reason it was my absolute favorite guitar once again, and now I know I friggin love it, but it's a slow burning flame that will often take a background seat for something hotter and newer for a bit... but I keep going back to it.
Correlation does prove causation, but it is interesting.
True metal, this is the way...
What emgs do you use btw?You say that, but look at this PM someone sent me over 15 years ago:
Actually I like to switch it up when recording something. The idea is to get every layer to sound ""slightly"" different. If you do something drastic like changing your amp, cab or IR then that's gonna throw off the whole mix. But a different guitar or a different mic position is just different enough to make it stand out without breaking the mix.
Why not both? Just because I want to learn more about one doesn't mean I'm neglecting the other.
Because songwriting and playing ARE important and will drastically change how a song sounds, what type of wood a guitar has or whether or not it's bolt on or neck through won't.
I disagree
Character & atmosphere are important, and they will make a difference. A solo will not sound the same on a superstrat compared to a LP, even if the performance is the same. Cleans won't sound the same on a strat compared to a 2 humbucker guitar. 
I smiled when I read your post, as it reminded me of the lost knowledge of the ancients (ancient being the 70s).
I remember my surprise when I first tried an Ibanez Blazer bass back in 1981, having played other basses up until then, and wondering "why does this bass sound like the bass of god?" This led me to study solid body luthiery.
What was conventional wisdom then seems to have been forgotten in the rush to produce guitars that sell well and have high margin potential. That wisdom used to be:
1. Through necks are better than set necks, which are better than bolt-ons. The top of every range of guitars was almost exclusively through neck guitars, followed by set necks (witness the catalogues of Ibanez, Aria and even the original Roland synth guitars). Bolt necks were always considered inferior for tone and sustain. All of that went out of the window with the advent of the superstrat and through necks are rare now.
2. Mass is good. Thick bodies, thicker necks, heavy brass bridges were the order of the day to get great tone and sustain. However, with superstrats becoming popular, this turned attention away from heavily-anchored bridges to locking trems. This also was accompanied by a move to slimmer bodies and necks, ironically in the latter case leading to ultra-thin Wizard necks which, to my mind, has coincided with an increase in tendonitis and complaints of pain from guitarists.
3. Wood matters. Necks have remained predominantly made of maple, but bodies that were once exclusively made of ash or mahogany on the then-premium guitars have increasingly been made of cheaper woods, such as basswood.
4. Star-alignment. Yep, you can get two identical guitars, same make and model off the same line, and one will be dull and the other will come alive. This is down to the variability if tonewoods and other accidents. Acoustic luthiers understand this very well and will "tap test" candidate top wood to check for tonal neutrality and even response. I don't even know how you would do that for 50mm thick body wood, though I'm sure it's feasible with the right equipment. But who would do it? This is why trying guitars in the shop is critical. But of course, manufacturers and even shops don't like this, preferring that you buy online or accept a boxed guitar from their store room. Yet my experience has always been that my best sounding guitars have been selected firsthand, in person.
Even more interestingly, we've begun to see these wisdoms being reintroduced: mahogany bodies, brass sustain blocks, "Gibraltar" bridges, (slightly) thicker necks, etc. Were I to commission a no-limits custom build, I'd almost certainly be ordering a through-neck design with an ash or mahogany body and a "heavy" trem (quite probably a Kahler).
Now that's not to say superstrats are pants. Indeed, I agree with many of the responses to this thread that advocate simply choosing a guitar that makes you smile and focusing on your performance. And Carlos Santana put it best when asked what proportion of his tone comes from his fingers versus his gear. His response: 10% from his fingers and 90% from his thighs.
And let's not forget that superstrats more easily allowed a more advanced school of playing, even if there were technical compromises to tone and sustain. After all, playing guitar is less physics and far more physicality. Plus, of course, you might just prefer the sound.
Rather, it is a matter of trade-offs: between playability and tone, and even affordability. After all, through-neck, premium wood guitars are more expensive to make than basswood bolt-ons.
But FWIW, I think your goal to understand why one guitar sounds better than another is a worthy one and will help inform your choices if you commission a new custom build. And while I'm sure you already know that it won't make you sound like anything other than you, at least you'll be that little bit more happy doing so.
