I had a goldtop one of those with dimarzios, and a spalted maple top with duncans in it. Both were great.

Were the Dimarzios stock? From what I'd read, the original iteration came with Fender pickups stock, and they switched to Duncans in '08. Can't speak for the goldtop, though, just the flametop. I'm betting the spalted maple looked fantastic.

It's definitely not a traditional Tele- much more contoured and a lot thinner. We compared it side-by-side to one of Chris's PRS Custom 24s at Garda rehearsal last week, and the body thickness is roughly the same. The neck on the Tele is a lot thinner, though. It's definitely smaller in all dimensions and quite a bit lighter than the silverburst, which is a heavy bastard. They're on a briefcase stand in my living room along with my black Strat, and you can see the progression in neck girth with 'em all lined up. The contoured heel and excellent upper fret access are pretty shocking- it's a shred Tele! Considering I actually do intend to use it as my "metal guitar", this works.

It's a very nice guitar- the body's pretty resonant, and the overall effect is basically of a Tele-shaped SG. The push-pull pot for the coil tap sounds very good, proper single coil sounds, and quiet. The Pearly Gates Plus is a very nice pickup if you like tight and midrangey, which suits my porpoises swimmingly. Build quality is very good. The only thing Fender may have cheaped out on are the kinda generic tuners. I'll live, especially as I prefer locking tuners anyhow. That being said, they're functional. Considering it was brand new with tags and had been sitting in a shop in Missouri for the past couple years, I am not gonna complain.