Playing them gives them life and helps them wear in and mellow out. There is nothing sadder than a beautiful instrument that is never played. Though given the value of rare guitars I can understand why people can't afford to risk damaging them. I guess that's why good beaters can become favorites because you can be more relaxed about pulling them out in any situation.

Your Jazzmaster sounds very cool. I played for years with a friend who played a hot pink 60s Jazzmaster and it was a great guitar. But I can understand putting the humbuckers in it for a meatier sound. That must be quite an axe. It took Fender a while to realize that people do like humbuckers as well as single pole pickups. Now they have their S1 switching system that lets you combine single poles in parallel or serial but I haven't had a chance to try one of the new models to see how well it works. I have always liked the tone range from a strat so it can only be even better I guess.

You mention Al Di Meola. I saw him some years back with his electric band and he is such a fiery player onstage. I also saw him with Stanley Clark , Billy Cobham and Jean Luc Ponty at the Greek Theater in LA while it was a lot more mellow it was just as impressive seeing that lineup as I'd always loved Return To Forever so seeing Clark and Di Meola together was a real kick. Much of the reason I use a Les Paul nowadays is because years ago I really fell in love with the sound listening to Al Di Meola. The weight wearing it playing with the band is probably bad for my back but the sound is so big. I always start the night playing the strat because the sets are mellower and the out of phase settings are cool for those songs. But once White Wedding and Back In Black are coming up on the set list I always swap it for the Paul. Ideally I'd like a mahogany and slab maple top strat that would sound like a Les Paul but a bit slimmer without quite as much weight.