cheaper cbs headstock fender strat: 70s classic or highway one?

[Philly Q]

Apparently the Greasebucket "replaces the standard wiring of a single polyester capacitor for the tone circuit, with two ceramic disk capacitors (.100uf and .02uf) with a 1/4-watt metal film resistor. The effect is that when rolled down, the tone pot reduces the high frequencies, but does not add bass."

[gwEm]

got a secondhand 70s reissue in the end. due to its secondhand-ness, it has issues... therefore it was cheap. a string change, good setup and some electrical work will fix everything.

as a guitar its fine, very nice even. don't find myself wishing i'd got the highway 1.

[Ian Price]

If you can cope with the 7.25" radius and skinny frets, I'd go for a Fender Japan ST72 rather than a Mexican '70s Classic.  It does have a basswood body, though, if that's an issue.  There's also a '68 model which is alder (I think) but it doesn't have the bullet truss rod.

But I'd probably get a Highway One myself, whenever I've owned a vintage-radius Fender I always end up selling it because it's too hard to play.  

I may well have to try out some non-vintage spec strats one day. I love the neck on my '57 reissue but feel I may be missing something - most opinions I have read are that flatter radius and bigger frets makes for a more enjoyable playing experience. I took my tele into have a refret by Mr Feline. I always thought the neck on it was really thin - Jonathan disagrees. WIll be interested to find out it's dimensions!

I also bumped into the Emerald Lion - it looks pretty damn good on the interweb but in the flesh it is astonishing. If only I had £2k to spare!