I'm suggesting some new USA models

[TheShadow]

You require A) a rear-inserted truss and B) more maple.

Not nec true. Like the PC1 (I think?), you simply put a maple fingerboard on a maple neck. And I'm pretty sure maple boards are cheaper than ebony....

[PowerTube]

You don't necessarily have to make the whole neck and fretboard from one piece of maple though. They could do it in exactly the same way they do ebony boards.

That's what I'm talking about. Once I found out that they don't have a tree farm that grows a hybrid maple/ebony tree, I started wondering why a maple board is a "woodworking change."

[MakeAJazzNoiseHere]

It's all in the fretboard prep work before the frets are installed. Tom Anderson has stated that he's done over 7,000 stainless fret installs and has only gone through ten fret files:

http://andersonforum.com/board/showt...ht=rise+medium

Dude, Tom Anderson is OK by me, but, even just polishing them takes 3x as long. You CANNOT leave even the slightest nut-to-bridge scratch in the frets or it will grind the strings in half, unlike nickle frets where that is a) easy to polish out and b) smooths off the first time you do a bend if you miss a little.