I've now had quite some time to play it, so here are my impressions so far; I've spent some extra time on the pickups, since some people wanted more info on this. This is, of course, subjective, and I have used the pickups only in one guitar.
Guitar:
+ Neck: very nice. It plays really nice. I'm amazed at the high bends that are possible, but I think this is due to the fact that it's an ESP and not a Fender and that the Fretboard radius is very large, more like a superstrat in fact. It's also a tad chunkier than most ESP necks.
+ acoustic sound: rich and warm with that maple neck/strat clarity. I had expected a very percussive feel over a "legato-"kind of feel, but it is fairly neutral in both respects. I think it may be the alder body, but I'm not really sure what strats are usually made of, to be honest (swamp ash? basswood?).
+ build quality: great, and the recessed bolt-on provides nice access
- knob layout. Apparently this is normal for strats, but that volume know is always in the way somehow and TWO tone knobs.... I would have preferred two volume knobs and one general tone knob. I might change the layout at some point and remove the first volume knob.
Pickups:
+ The Sinner is a great beast and can get very heavy. It is very good at early Slayer/Metallica/Iron Maiden sound and gets very heavy. I played some Motley Crue/Dokken/Skid Row earlier today (not that I played it very well, though) and felt it really does some great 80s sounds as well. It's strength is the clarity and "deepness" on single notes and a very fast response (naturally that works well when playing faster). It also works very nicely with pick attack - hit harder and you feel it in the sound. It doesn't do styles such as In Flames, Pantera, Trivium very well and simply lacks the brute force for death metal, it isn't "abrasive" enough on the low end. While it has a very fast bass response (good), it does less well on bigger/complex chords under high gain (bad). It cannot match the string separation of an EMG81 or Nailbomb either, especially on heavily distorted rhythm sounds. That is part of its character though, I feel it reminds me a lot of Yngwie Malmsteen's heavier sounds. It cleans up ok, but I find the clean sound isn't that amazing (it's ok). Frankly, rolled down it isn't much better than the Nailbomb I have.
The biggest plus IMO of the Sinner is its uniqueness and "old school character", which is really cool.
+ Trilogy Suite, neck: very nice, great sounds for everything: clean, crunch, high gain. Love it!
+/- Trilogy S., mid: it's not bad, but simply not as nice as either the Sinner nor the neck TS. Admittedly a bit disappointed there - most of the time there is no reason not too switch to the neck position. On my old Ibanez RG I usually preferred the middle pickup over the neck pickup, so that's a bit unexpected.
- In between sounds. The neck/mid in between has some good tones, which sound different and very percussive (almost like out of phase), but the mid/bridge one just isn't anything to brag about.
