Aside from the wild analogies going around here, if you think an Aftermath is a poor imitation of an EMG simply because it's not one, then I guess your choice is to get an EMG.
I still can't see anyone getting an Aftermath wanting a tight pickup and coming away disappointed. These pickups all have their own characters and if you want tightness and the character of an EMG then congratulations, there are millions of them on the market so they're easy to get and your choice is clear. But if you want a dry, angry pickup with lots of mids and an abrasive crunch, then in that light an EMG is going to seem like a poor man's Aftermath.
It just seems like an arbitrary standard and it sounds like you haven't actually tried an Aftermath if you think an EMG is so obvious a comparison that you would rule it out for that reason alone.