Well according to the EBMM web site, the maple top is now a veneer. On my EBMM Axis that I bought new in June 2001 (its born on date was March 2001), it is a solid 1/8 piece of quilt maple, and extremely quilted 5A maple at that. The birdseye maple neck is extremely figured as well.
The Gotoh Floyd on mine is excellent, better than an OFR. It doesn't look like they're still using the same Gotoh since the posts are now chrome and not black, but only way to tell is is the brass tremolo block is stamped Gotoh. I can tell you that aside from the posts it looks like the same trem.
As far as fret ends sticking out, that's the price of an oiled neck that gets dry- same happened with fine. Get a humidification system to put in your guitar case that gets used on acoustic guitars and you should be fine.
I'd pick one out in person though, back when I got mine at Royal Music in Merrick NY (now closed), I cherry picked from about 15 they had on the shelf and picked the best.
The oiled neck is a bit prone to warping, after 10 years I developed a fret buzz on the G string 1st fret- I was told the neck "fishtailed" and needed a refret. Do I refretted with much larger Jescar super jumbo frets, shimmed the trem and neck and it's a superior guitar now.
:bad:
